MyCoR 3: Turn About
by Amita4ever
Summary: Captured by bounty hunters, Riddick is enroute to Tangiers Penal Colony when the ship goes down in a rainforest and he's not the only survivor. The other is a citified secretary with a bounty of her own, but she may be more trouble than she's worth. FINISHED!
1. Chapter 1: Welcome To Tangiers

**Don't like reading formalities, copyrights, summaries and junk right off the bat - ;o) - don't bother. Just scroll down to the beginning of the story. It's pretty obvious.**

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**MyCoR 3  
(My Chronicles of Riddick)**  
**my:** (_adjective_) of or relating to me or myself especially as author of _these_ particular  
**chronicles**: (_noun_) a historical account of events arranged in order of time.  
This is _**not**_ a title claiming The Chronicles of Riddick are mine. Rather, this is the third in a series of additional (and completely unofficial) chronicles that **I** have created for Riddick that tries to fill in some of the space left by the movies while staying within the canon (universe and timeline) laid out by Universal Studios (_**and**_ my attempt to force ff.n to file these stories in chronological order instead of alphabetical ;oD). Most stories in this arc are, for the most part, stand-alone with only minor references to previous stories so if you haven't read the stories that came before this one, don't sweat it :o) but if you are interested...

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**Stories before this one:**

**MyCoR 1: Saved by Grace** (see profile for current status) - 30 years before TCoR a man sought his future and certain events were set in motion... during the destruction of Furya an infant was left in a trashcan to die, his own umbilical 'artfully' wrapped around his neck. How'd he survive? My take.

**MyCoR 2: Be Still: Chances** (see profile for current status) - Riddick's history is piecemeal at best, and a lot happened to him before PITCH BLACK. What were the Wailing Wars? Where'd the million credit bounty come from? Why does he hate God? My take on Riddick's past.

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**FORMALITIES**

**COPYRIGHTS:  
Fandom:**The character of Richard Riddick as well as mentions of Sigma 3, Spitfires, Tangiers Penal Colony, Altair Prison Network and other elements taken from the context of the movies Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick, their novelizations and their official websites are copyrighted to Universal Studios. The manner of their use and everything else in Turn About is the creative creation of Amita4ever.

**Bookcover**: A number of years we visited the Redwoods in CA. This picture in no way does them justice. The 'clip art' additions - tiny and indistinguishable as they are - are courtesy of Vin Diesel (via his Facebook fan page) and Microsoft clipart.

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**RATED:** T (if at any time you feel this rating is inappropriate, please** "SEND MESSAGE"** through my profile)  
**FOR**  
**Language:** medium  
**Adult Themes:** mild  
**Violence:** medium  
**Other:**

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**SUMMARY:  
**Captured by bounty hunters, Riddick is enroute to Tangiers Penal Colony when the ship goes down in a rainforest, and he's not the only survivor. The other's a citified secretary with a bounty of her own, but she may be more trouble than she's worth.

**ON RIDDICK'S TIMELINE:  
**Takes place **after** my story BeStill-Part 1: Chances(in progress),and **previous** to Riddick's eye shining & the movie Pitch Black. _(For a more exact location, see __The History of Riddick: A Writer's Tool__. It's Riddick's __history from official sources for the use of writers who like to pull on (or fit their stories in the vicinity of) the 'official' canon of the character. S__ince I posted it, I took the liberty of noting the location of my stories in it :o)_

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**REVIEWS ALWAYS APPRECIATED**

(Good ones I enjoy, critical ones I value, and those that include specifics I love)

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**«MyCoR 3»**

**» TURN ABOUT «**

By Amita4ever

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**Chapter 1**

**Welcome to Tangiers**

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There was a new name floating around. The Shadow. It was a name heard in certain circles, inside prisons mostly, given for the lack of any other. The Shadow was a bounty hunter. The more perceptive of those that had encountered the Shadow would say they'd thought someone might have been tailing them for a week or so... invisible, not pushing, not pressing, just following, shadowing, then there were others who were clueless. The thing they all had in common was one moment they were free, the next thing they knew they were waking from cryosleep in a prison med ward. No one knew if the Shadow was a single man or a crew. They only knew that the Shadow went for the big dogs and Riddick knew, sooner or later, the Shadow would be coming after him.

And so they had.

The trap had been neatly laid. Riddick had the inkling that someone might be sniffing at his tail for near on a month. Had felt them - felt them close on occasion - but they'd been slick as melting ice. The planet had been Riddick's choice. So had the city and even the cantina, but he'd never seen them - not till he opened his eyes and found himself locked down in a cryotube. That was one thing the Shadow hadn't counted on – this payday didn't sleep in cryo.

The Shadow, it seemed, was a crew. The leader was a man named Jenner, and he was smooth. Way smoother than he seemed in person, evidently, but who was Riddick to argue with first impressions. It was results that mattered, and even the restraints had been well thought out so the results were him listening as Jenner requested clearance to approach Tangiers Penal Colony where he and his crew expected to collect an 850,000 credit bounty… but they weren't there yet. Even if they got Riddick there, there was no guarantee Tangiers could hold him, although he'd rather not have to test that theory. Better if he could do something before they got him inside.

Riddick knew he was suppose to be asleep, but since cryo didn't to affect him the way it did civilized people, he'd had the occasion to look around... to study the rest of the 'bodies' on board. There were five in all. So far as the bounty hunters went, the two women and the 'grunt' seemed standard issue. The leader, Jenner, on the other hand, had some 'augmentation'. At least one of the bounty hunter's eyes was souped up with tech but the scars around it led Riddick to believe it might not have been completely voluntary. If that was the case, Riddick probably wouldn't need to worry about fighting someone with 'super' strength, but it still put Jenner high on the list of priorities just in case.

Cybernetic enhancements were not unheard of among mercs, some more than others, but Riddick himself had shied away from them. Artificial eyes like Jenner's could be programmed to do all sorts of things from seeing in low light, to picking up infrared and targeting, but all cybernetics had one thing in common... They were tech, and technology meant wires, circuits, neural interfaces... Tech meant it was only a matter of time before it broke, before wires burned out, before circuits fused, before interfaces malfunctioned or needed upgrading. Tech might be handy, but there was no way in hell Riddick was replacing perfectly good organics with fallible artificial junk. He _had _heard a rumor of something called 'shining' just before he cut fence on Hubble Bay Penal. One of those 'friend of a friend of a friend heard' kinds of things... some sort of process that added reflective gel to the retina making eyes that shined like a cats... an organic way to let human eyes see in the dark, but it sounded more hype than real.

The last 'body' on the ship was in another lockdown tube. There were four tubes in all, two on either side of the narrow deck. Two were empty, but the one across from him had a woman in it. Because the tubes angled partially forward, Riddick's view of the other occupant was more side on, but he could see enough to make some generalizations. Riddick guessed her for new to early 20s, although she might be older. It was hard to tell sometimes. She'd been there when he woke up so she'd probably been cryo'd before he was brought on board and there was no telling how long. The crew simply ignored her. So far as they were concerned, she didn't seem to exist. She certainly didn't _look_ like a threat - designer civilian dress, thin, pretty, petite - and so long as she didn't become one she didn't concern him either, although Riddick couldn't help but wonder what interest she held for a bunch of bounty hunters.

"Welcome to Tangiers Penal Colony, CC 46075-7. You have clearance." the comm. unit suddenly crackled. "We are ready and willing to take possession. Please approach using vector heading transmitting now. We will have a welcoming committee waiting at the dock. _DO_ double check your restraint system and _DO_ contact us with verbal confirmation using this code..." a text code message flashed across the flat screen, "before exiting the craft or you may find the welcome a little hot. Your cargo is earning a reputation and we are not taking any chances."

"CC 46075-7. Instructions received and will comply," Jenner responded grandly. He released the switch and whooped victoriously. His crew of fellow mercenary bounty hunters cheered and began to chatter about the impending payoff as the pilot set in the coordinates and they broke orbit.

The ride grew rough and the internal temp began to climb as they hit the atmosphere. The air resistance superheated the fuselage sending a wash of yellow and orange up and around the windows, but it was all expected. It was all routine…

...until a red light started flashing on the console. Riddick, of all people, saw it first and began to struggle against his restraints with new purpose. It wasn't long before more flashing lights and then alarms joined the first. Soon Jenner's crew was a mass of confusion and the pilot made a fateful announcement. They were going down.

As the alarms sounded Riddick took advantage of the commotion and heaved violently against his restraints. On the third try he felt a shift in one arm. It held, but he had some slack, and that was a start. It was quickly becoming evident that the pilot didn't know what to do. He threw himself forward, his head connecting with the curved Implastic window over the top half of his cryotube. His desperation gave him strength and the spot rivets fusing the window to the frame began to pop. He rammed it again, and the window crashed to the floor adding yet another light to the confusion. "VERA!" he roared calling the pilot by name. He'd learned all their names. You never knew when a little piece if information like that might come in handy. "VERA!" he roared again. His voice was raised to be heard amid the panic, but the tone was deadly calm and it cut through the fear like a shiv. He saw her react, turning to hear without taking her eyes off the displays. "Listen to me," he shouted. "Purge the environmental coolant into the undercarriage."

That got her attention. "WHAT?" she turned to face the voice. "We'll roast like turkeys…" Her protest died as she found the source. "YOU! What are you doing awake!"

"Tryin' to save my butt," Riddick snarled. "You ever tried to bring a ship down with cracked shielding?" He could see by her expression that she hadn't. "I have! PURGE THE COOLANT NOW!"

There was a quarter second more as Vera decided if the cargo had the authority and experience to give her orders, then her hands were flying over the console. In that moment she earned as much respect as Riddick was ever likely to grant another merc, for when she made the decision that her prisoner knew more than she, she turned off her logic functions and simply obeyed despite Jenner's protests.

Riddick continued to bark orders to the constantly changing situation and she reacted as if she were an extension of his hands. If the split seconds between orders and compliance narrowed their odds, her complete obedience bought them a chance. It wasn't until they were in clear space over trees that Riddick fell silent. She could handle the rest, what little there was. They'd done what they could. Vera called out the altitude as they dropped, more stone than glider, and at 1000 meters she screamed, "BRACE YOURSELVES!" as she spun her seat to put it and her back to the imminently shattering windshield.

Her eyes locked briefly with Riddick's, and he grinned. "Good knowing you, Vera!" Then he ducked down in his cryotube as far as his restraints would allow.

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**-OoO-**

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**Are you hooked yet? Well, the good news is that this story is FINISHED! COMPLETE! Reaches 'THE END'! **

***THROWS CONFFETTI*  
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**If you decide to keep reading, I would covet your chapter comments! If not that, can I beg a story end review if nothing else. You know how we authors are, and I truly, truly appreciate them - positive AND critical!  
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**Thanks for looking. Hope to hear from you at the end ;)  
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	2. Chapter 2: Knight in Tarnished Armor

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 2**

**Knight in Tarnished Armor**

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Riddick woke in a pocket of darkness, but he could see light filtering in from odd angles here and there. Even had he not remembered the pilot's announcement that they were going down, the evidence was all around him. He heard the hot hiss of escaping gases, the heavy groan of shifting metal and the electric arcing of broken wires from every quarter while the noxious smells of ozone, fire retardant and other chemicals that were supposed to be kept separate from breathing air assailed his nose. Fortunately, they seemed to have landed upright. Unfortunately, something heavy pressed down on his back, pinning him, making it hard to draw a full breath. That, however, considering the presence of the various chemicals in the air, was probably not a bad thing.

He took inventory of his body, tensing the muscles of each limb, checking the aches for severity. His left shoulder felt like it was being ripped from his body. He had one hand free, the restraint broken, and he'd been thrown partially forward through the windowless opening in his cryotube. The weight pressed his gut sharply against the frame, but thanks to the restraint holding his other arm his body could be forced no lower. It was ironic, but stretching his arm out so painfully behind him had absorbed part of the force of the crash and was even now supporting a portion of the weight above him, preventing him from being cross-sectioned by the metal frame. It had probably saved his butt, but _damn_ it hurt. He carefully worked his free hand up to the edge of the cryotube and braced against it. Using it as a base he pressed up.

The muscles through his back, arm, legs and one good shoulder strained sending sharp lances of pain through his body as his stretched out shoulder screamed. He felt the weight above him shift faintly and that was all the encouragement he needed. With a focused roar of pain and determination he heaved upwards and the weight moved, lifted, shifted and fell! The entire ship shook as a large piece of the bulkhead hit the floor, then toppled against the opposite wall as Riddick stood to his full height. The main cabin had held together relatively well... considering... but the ship was, quite literally, in pieces, as was at least one of the crew. The door and a portion of the wall had been ripped from the hull, and the fuselage had cracked apart like an egg. He could see lush growth through the holes and separations. With such an abundance of ventilation he took a chance, drawing a deep and careful breath. Aches and twinges, but no strains, no breaks. All things considered, he figured himself pretty lucky.

Gaps in the ceiling and walls let in tree filtered sunlight compensating for the failure of the interior lighting and he used that pale illumination to reach outside his cryotube with his free hand and search the controls. A small red button labeled EMERGENCY RELEASE beckoned.

A minute later Riddick stood outside his cryotube rotating his aching shoulder carefully. Damn painful having to pop your own joints back in place, but then it was no worse than having to pop it out, and he had done that before too when it served his purpose. In all this brief time he had been up and moving, he had neither seen nor heard any other sign of human life. It was quite obvious some of the crew would never be moving again, but he hadn't accounted for all of them yet. It was then he became aware of a sound that didn't fit the crash model; a rhythmic thumping that almost had a pattern. Listening carefully he located the sound behind the bulkhead that he'd shifted and went to investigate. If it was one of the bounty hunters, he intended to put them out of his misery.

He found instead, after shifting the piece of debris again, the second occupied cryotube. The lockdown tubes had a back-up power source so they could operate independent of the ship's power. It was a handy feature if you wanted to be able to transport the occupant off ship without waking them, but the piece of bulkhead had fallen against the cryotube's controls and the woman inside was now in convulsions.

"Ah, shit," Riddick muttered in disgust. He didn't want to deal with this. If the cryotube had remained intact he'd have just left her to be found by the authorities, but she didn't have time for that now. If he didn't do something she was going to die. Did he care?

Not really, but still he hesitated. She was in a lockdown tube like himself. What that had to do with it he didn't quite know, except if she was in lockdown she was no friend of the merc hunters, and maybe spiting them was enough justification in itself. Then again, if the authorities wanted her bad enough, she might be able to take some of the heat off him. Probably not, but he punched the emergency release anyway, then punched it again when nothing happened. Inside the tube the woman had gone still and Riddick knew if he was going to do this thing he'd better do it fast.

He reached over and grasped the catch, squeezing the manual exterior release, and pulled. It was jammed… or locked. Didn't really matter which. "Hell," Riddick growled, then with a tremendous heave he literally ripped the front of the tube off. Immediately he was engulfed in an invisible cloud of floral scent so potent it nearly made his eyes water. No wonder she was convulsing! The woman slumped forward and Riddick caught her as he let the tube front crash to the floor behind him.

She was slimly built. Her dress was a short little number of white and pastels that had class written all over it, not that that would do her much good here. He dumped her unceremoniously on the floor in front of him. She lay unmoving, her eyes half lidded and glazed as Riddick knelt on one knee beside her and checked her vitals. She had a heartbeat, but wasn't breathing. He didn't have much call for the skill these days, but he knew what to do. Lifting her up, he placed his mouth over hers and shared some recycled air.

He'd filled her lungs three times when he felt her twitch. On the fourth he felt her squirm. Suddenly she was all movement, struggling against him, and as he lifted his head from hers a stinging slap landed against his cheek. She writhed loose, scrambling backwards, panic written all over her face... nearly radiating from her. "Stay away from me, you pervert," she shouted.

She came up short against the wall as Riddick raised his hand briefly to his cheek, then dropped his arm to rest across his knee as he stared at her amused. For a frail she packed a pretty mean swing, 'specially for just coming out of cryo. "Damn, girl," he rumbled, an edge of humor lightening his normally deep menacing tones, "I just saved your life. Your tube was malfunctioning."

"Oh," she said weakly, then her expression transformed. "Oh!" she exclaimed, reaching toward him as if she could take back the hurt she had just caused. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know… I didn't realize… I'm so sorry." Her hand paused. "…my tube was malfunctioning?" she suddenly repeated, sounding confused. She stared at him a moment, then her hand fell as she looked around her at the twisted wreckage. "Oh," she said again profoundly. "Damn."

She appeared stunned and thoughtful as she began speaking. He wasn't even sure she was speaking to him, but perhaps simply recollecting out loud. "I'd been at my hotel three days. I was stepping out for dinner when this man and his crew grabbed me. He said his name was Jenner and that Papa Leone heard I was running errands."

Papa Leone? Riddick raise an eyebrow. The underworld boss?

"He said Papa Leone was offering a sweet little credit collection to meet me in person and he intended to arrange the introduction, but first they had to pick up the…" She choked, then turned to stare hard at Riddick as if she were seeing him for the first time. Her features froze, then her eyes grew wide. "You're him! You're the Riddick-Man! Help!" she screamed. "Somebody help!"

Her legs started scrambling again, pushing her against the wall so hard her back began to slide up it. "Help," she screamed. "Somebody help me!" and though Riddick didn't move except to watch her, she continued screaming as she skirted around him without ever turning her back on him. Only when she had a straight shot at the door did she turn and make a break for it, failing to consider she was no longer on a ship, but amid wreckage. Her only adjustment to the situation was hands in front of her face as she pushed through a cascade of dangling wires, but the wires hid something more solid. A cross bar had shifted downward, and she found it with her forehead. There was a loud clang as she connected, and she went down hard.

When she didn't move Riddick finally stood and walked to where she lay, ducking each obstacle with an easy awareness of his altered environment. He nudged her body over with the toe of his boot. She shifted limply revealing a nasty gash bleeding above her eye, but she was breathing and he suspected it wouldn't be long before she was moaning. Shaking his head he turned, and heard something small and metallic ping off the wall, propelled by contact with his foot. Looking down he saw a half dozen .44 shells on the floor and bent down to pick them up. Good old gunpowder projectiles. Not recommended for space, but a good many mercs still preferred them on the ground. Their source was not immediately obvious so he put the shells in his pocket and headed forward. The cockpit was now separated from the rest of the ship by daylight all the way around. The only thing left connecting it to the rest of the ship was a shattered spider web of wires and debris. No question. It wasn't a ship anymore, it probably wasn't even salvage. He just hoped he could get enough functioning that he could get his bearings and see if he should be expecting company.

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Riddick considered things well in hand by the time he heard the frail moving again. He had quickly determined the emergency beacon had been destroyed during re-entry and doubted it had ever sent out a signal. By now the Tangiers Penal Colony knew the CC-46075 had gone down somewhere, but it looked like a _big_ forest on approach and with any luck they had only the vaguest idea where to start looking. If he could get the right systems working, he could get what he needed and be gone, perhaps even off planet, before the authorities ever found the wreckage.

To that end he'd been lucky enough to find the on-board toolbox and was now deep under what remained of the cockpit console, tools spread out on the floor around him. Occasionally he had to squirm his bulk out, then in again when he needed a tool other than the ones scattered around him. It was awkward work as he felt somewhat blindly for the tool he needed, trying to put them back in the same location when he exchanged for another. It was also a position of extreme vulnerability, but as he listened he decided the girl wasn't going to be a threat. She was making no attempt at stealth as her unsteady footsteps shuffled aimlessly through the aft section kicking pieces of debris.

Finally she turned toward the cockpit. He could pick out her path by the noise and knew what she was going to find. He'd taken the time to count before he went to work. Not a single bounty hunter survived, and he didn't doubt they'd be added to his tally. Wouldn't matter that they'd died in the crash and he was in full restraints and was supposed to be in cryo. He'd been on board and he'd survived so some how it'd be his fault five more mercs were dead – and some hadn't died pretty.

Didn't bother him on either account, and he'd just chucked what he found on the ship in a heap out of the way, but they made for a rather gruesome mass. When she found it he heard her backpedal fast, then her feet were rushing out the door. Once she was outside he heard her retching against the side of the ship. "Civillians," he grumbled.

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**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**NOTES:**

How does one create a world they've never been to? Well, in my case, I'm very visual so imagination + pictures is a good place to start. During my research of the temperate rainforest and other features I wanted to incorporate into my story, I collected a number of pictures that served to inspire the description of the world I hope to take you to. If you are also a visual person or just appreciate natural beauty and wonder, here are a few of the pictures I discovered while writing Turn About...**  
**

To access these pictures, start with the traditional **triple w dot** followed by **dropbox . com** and then copy and paste this address...

**/ sh / 1e3rvjptr8k22yc / FYN9TpQqd9**

... behind it. Take out all the spaces and click enter. Click on the top left picture with the words to start the slide show. I apologize for having to make getting there such a puzzle. You know what ff.n likes to do to web links.


	3. Chapter 3: Girl With a Payday

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 3**

**Girl with a Payday**

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It was perhaps 20 minutes later he heard her moving around again, coming back through the ship and he smelled her a kilometer away. She retraced her steps, and when she found the pile again she pushed by bravely, going as wide as she could around it. "Mr. Riddick?" she called softly as she made her way into the cockpit. Fear filled her voice, but he had to give her credit. She came anyway and with her the near overwhelming scent of exotic flora. "I'm really sorry I slapped you," she offered quietly as she stood in the doorway.

"Yeah," Riddick muttered distractedly as he squirmed out to rummage through the toolbox and collect an odd tool, "No problem." He shoved his bulk back under the console and continued working.

She was silent for several minutes, and he could feel her eyes on him, watching him, could almost hear the circuits shorting in her head. Alone with the Riddick-Man. What would she do? Finally she spoke again. "You're not…" she was a little breathless, as if dreading to ask a question that had to be answered, "...you're not going to kill me?"

"Contrary to popular belief," he said placidly from where he was working, "I don't kill every person I set eyes on." He pulled himself out from under the console and stared at her. "Unless they give me reason." She gasped and stepped back quickly only to get her feet tangled. She sat down hard, one foot kicking the toolbox into the selection of tools he had laid out on the floor. Riddick looked at the disturbed tools, then looked back at her. His mild attitude was even more chilling than anger. "Don't give me reason. Be useful." She nodded franticly, eyes wide, and he pointed at the tools. "You know what any of these are?" He saw her terror as she shook her head, "Then you're going to learn." Riddick had her sit in the remaining seat then proceeded to reorganize the tools where she could reach them as he gave her the name for each. She either had a sharp mind, or it was the fear for her life for she had them all memorized by the third repetition.

Repairs went much more quickly after that so he decided to indulge his curiosity. The one name she'd dropped so far had been a relatively big one. "Circuit tester," he commanded, and when the proper tool had been delivered into his hand he continued, "So what's your name?"

"Denise Coulter," she answered timidly.

"And what was this errand that put you in Jenner's freezer?"

She was silent a moment, then he heard her sigh. "I work for a guy named Tony Gallo."

Riddick paused as she dropped another hefty underworld name, someone who was no friend of Papa Leone.

"I'm his secretary, at least part of the time. The rest of the time I run errands for him, you know, pick that up, drop this off, a case of Boravine eggs from the Terac System, that sort of thing."

"He sends you to Terac just to pick up eggs? Like for his breakfast?" Riddick asked dubiously, "Splicer."

She switched out the tool in the hand sticking out from under the console for the one requested and the hand disappeared. "_Boravine_ eggs," she corrected, "he likes them fresh, or at least as fresh as humanly possible, so he's got me cleared for ultra first class passage – fastest ships, non-stop flight priority, skip baggage checks, stuff like that. Of course, it comes in handy for the other errands too."

"And this time?"

"A delivery," she answered frankly, "and don't ask me what it is," she added before he could speak. "I have no clue and I know better than to ask. I know its information of some sort because it's stored on memory disks, but that's all I can tell you. I told my contact I had arrived and was supposed to hang out at Tony's hotel on Breken 4 until I was contacted with the drop site… only Jenner grabbed me first. I have no idea how Papa Leone found out about it or why he wants it, I only know it got me here… with you… and I'm scared," she finished softly.

"Why?" Riddick's voice was muffled as he twisted in the tight space to connect two wires, wondering as he did why Papa Leone was so insistent he get his hands on the frail when it sounded like what he really wanted was the disks.

"Because Jenner told me you were the baddest man killer ever set foot on any planet anywhere and that you like to eat sweets like me for breakfast."

Her voice had grown fearful again, and Riddick was frustrated by her damned perfume. It masked every other scent in a 3 meter radius, but she continued unaware of his irritation.

"He called you the Riddick-Man, the Big Evil. He said he was thinking he might just put the two of us together so he could watch the fun before he dropped you off, but that he'd have to think about it because he couldn't be sure I'd survive." Her voice quavered. "He said you made Jack the Ripper, and Solomon Pane, and the Chaklen System Serial Killer look like rank beginners. By the time he got done telling me about you, I was practically begging him to put me in cryo. Anything so as I wouldn't see you."

So that was why she nearly killed herself trying to get away from him. "Yeah, well, don't believe everything you hear," Riddick growled under the console. He held out his hand. "Spanner." She switched out the tools. "So why'd you come back."

"Well," she was pensive. "Once I saw where we came down I knew I wasn't going to get out of here alone… I don't even know what planet we're on! …and… well… you did save my life. I wanted to say thank you."

Riddick pulled himself partway out so he could see the frail's face. A thick dark flaking trail of drying blood clung to her temple and streaked back into her dark brown hair, but the gash on her forehead hadn't stopped bleeding completely. She held a scrap of cloth to it, but every time she removed it a thin red trail soon trickled down onto her cheek. She looked pale. She was still afraid, but her thanks seemed genuine. "Don't mention it," he returned gruffly, but his mind was turning as he slid back under. It wasn't the authorities offering the payday on this girl – this might be something _he_ could cash in on if he played his cards right. After all, turn about was fair play, so they said. No reason the convict couldn't earn the bounty for a change. "So what was Papa Leone gonna pay for you?"

"Jenner said 25," she answered.

"Hundered?"

"Thousand."

Riddick let out a brief whistle.

"Is that bad?" she asked anxiously.

Riddick chuckled. "Suppose that'd 'pends on your perspective."

"Perspective?" She was puzzled.

"Yeah," he answered suddenly serious. "On which end of the gun you perceive is pointin' in your direction."

"Oh." She understood. After a pause she asked hesitantly, "How much are you worth?"

"Pend's on who you talk to," he said, "but at least one man out there thinks I'm worth a mil."

It was her turn to whistle, and then she let out a little giggle.

"What?" Riddick was surprised by her sudden shift.

"Well," she answered, "I don't think I've ever hung out with anyone so notorious before."

Considering whom she said she worked for, Riddick supposed that was saying something. "I'm flattered," he growled and she giggled again. Riddick rolled his eyes. Not just a frail, but a flighty frail.

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Duchess2006**, **Pademe4000** & **Hope and love** – Thank you all for your reviews and your encouragement. I actually have a total of 4 Riddick stories I'm working on now so I'm not quite sure what my update schedule will be, but reviews and comments give me an idea which stories people are enjoying and can't help but spur me on *****wink***** so if you continue to like Turn About (or even notice something not right), don't hesitate to let me know.

Again, Thank you for your support ;o)


	4. Chapter 4: Questionable Companion

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 4**

**Questionable Companion**

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A half hour later Riddick pulled himself out from beneath the console for the last time and shoved the grips in his back pocket. The thing was dead, never to again scan the stars, save for a single screen that had been lifted out of it's housing exposing a myriad of colorful wires behind it, some of them new to the configuration. That single screen glowed. "Think we got lucky. Flight recorder data seems to've survived," Riddick said and Denise watched in fascination as the convict punched in a command and the screen displayed a revolving planet. "We're on Debaton."

"That's where Jenner said he was going to take you, some place called Tangiers," Denise exclaimed.

"Yeah" he grinned. "So close. Almost feel sorry for the man."

Riddick saw her glance at him, then back toward the pile and shudder. "Did... did you kill them?" she asked quietly.

"Didn't have to," Riddick answered frankly as he continued typing. The screen changed. "This was our position in orbit." A red dot appeared over the planet. "This was where Jenner wanted to go." A dotted blue line leaped forward and curved its way toward a location high in the frozen northern hemisphere. He typed again and a second line appeared - a solid red one. This line started to follow the blue one, then suddenly veered off. It became somewhat erratic and shifting then streaked across the planet's face before finally coming to rest somewhere south of the equator near the coast of the same continent. They'd come damn close to overshooting land altogether. Lucky break.

"This is where we ended up." A few more taps zoomed the screen in until it showed a two dimensional map of their current location and the surrounding area. Riddick groused silently to himself as an attempt to pull up something with more detail failed. "Normally a civvie like you'd want to stick around and wait for help. Populated planet like this, it could be a matter of hours, day or two at the most, but in our case help ain't comin' anytime soon. The emergency beacon was fried on entry with the rest of the system and I doubt they know where to start looking, which is fine by me. This is designated wilderness - temperate rainforest," he indicated the green around the crash zone, "but this..." He pointed to a large blocky dark space on the far side of the screen. "...is civilization, and this," he pointed to a faint shape on the edge of the dark block that had several pale cross angled lines, "is a space port. We make it there and its have credit, will travel... anywhere you want to go."

"Breken 4?" Denise asked.

"If you want." Riddick eyed her intently.

"Good," the frail nodded with satisfaction. "I still have a delivery to make."

Riddick smiled. "Maybe I'll go with you," he suggested.

Denise looked at him sharply, fear back in her eyes, but Riddick shook his head. "Look, I've got nothing better to do now, and this delivery seems to've made you a target. I help you out, and maybe your boss throws a little appreciation my way."

She stared at him, but the explanation seemed reasonable so she finally looked back to the screen and nodded slowly. "OK, I guess that makes sense," she said almost reluctantly. "How are we going to get there?"

"On foot," he answered plainly. "We start out now and we'll get there in five," he glanced over her slender form, "maybe eight days."

She bristled. "When I'm home I work out in the gym five days a week. I can keep up with you."

Riddick stared at her until she started to cringe. "Then let's go," he rumbled dangerously.

At that she paled. "No! We can't go yet. I don't have my travel bag."

"Your travel bag," he snarled in surprise. "We crash land in the wilderness and you're worried about luggage?" He wasn't quite ready to leave either, but it wasn't luggage he was after.

"No," she all but whimpered. "You don't understand. If I don't have that bag I'll die."

Riddick glanced over the girl's thin form again. "You addicted?" he asked flatly, and his deep voice grated with threat. He knew if she was there'd be another body added to the pile no matter what her potential. Addicts couldn't be trusted, and the 850,000 credits Tangiers Penal Colony was offering would buy a lot of fixes.

"No, no," she pleaded backing away from the danger she saw in his dark eyes. "Nothing like that! It's the disks. They're in my bag. It's my errand bag! Please, Mr. Riddick, I wouldn't lie about that. Not to you! Don't hurt me!" Her voice was rising in panic, and Riddick forced himself to back down.

They were at least five days from civilization. If she was addicted, he'd know by then, and it didn't really matter where he left the body. "s'alright," he grumbled. "Go find your bag. I'll help you in a minute." He turned his back on her and let her flee, giving her time to pull herself together. The last thing he wanted was a hysterical flighty frail.

He played with the display a few minutes more, gathering what additional information he could, then went in to join her search. There were a few other things they could use on the walk ahead. When he entered the aft section he found her struggling futilely to shift the piece of bulkhead, which had come to rest in front of the lockers. Pesky piece of debris, but he decided there was a higher priority. The girl was trying to hold cloth against her forehead and shove at the piece of bulkhead at the same time, and neither task was being successful. He knew if the gash hadn't stopped bleeding by now, it wasn't likely to any time soon. "Coulter," he barked. She jumped, and came down facing him. Quick little minx, he noted, running nerves hot, but he supposed he couldn't blame her. She still didn't know if he was going to ghost her or not.

"Don't do that!" she snapped, eyes flashing. "You near killed me."

"May yet," Riddick commented off handedly, amused by her flare of temper, and he watched as her bright anger transformed into immediate contrition; the words reminding her with instant clarity just who she was talking to. He rather preferred her not knowing. "But for now, come here." She obeyed reluctantly. Less arguments. "That cut's been bleedin' long enough. Know an old merc trick that'll stop it. Hurts like hell, but does the job." When she reached him he picked her up effortlessly and plopped her on the top of the targeting console. From his pocket he pulled out one of the .44 shells. Using the grips he carefully worked the slug out, and then held the open shell before her horrified eyes.

He held her tight against him, her cheek pressed against his chest as he worked, carefully tapping a thin line of gunpowder into the seeping wound. Although she held herself steady, he could feel a faint trembling in the small hands clasping his waist. The floral scent she exuded overpowered even the noxious chemicals left lingering in the air, but this close to her he could just almost pick up something else. Something rich and complex, something unique and different with a hint of something that wanted to be familiar... _HER_ scent spiced with fear, buried beneath the flowers. It was an enticing whisper, but there just wasn't enough coming through to identify. _Damn her perfume_, he thought.

When he was finished he set the shell aside and started touching the ends of broken wires dangling from the damaged weapons' panel. When he found two that sparked she jerked, then shut her eyes tight as she took a death grip on his waist. Pulling out enough slack to reach, he held the two wires near the gash and brushed their ends together. A crackling display of sparks leaped over the gunpowder. In a flash it ignited and the frail went rigid, digging her nails into his sides. He heard her scream in her throat although she didn't let it escape her clenched jaws. Then it was over, leaving the faint stench of brimstone and charred flesh to fight a losing battle against the flowers.

"You can let go now," he said blandly after her scream had died, and she gasped, releasing him so quickly you'd think he'd caught fire. He pulled his tank top up curiously and glanced at his side. She hadn't drawn blood, but she'd come darn near. "You're lucky," he commented, "the last man that left marks on me ain't around no more," his meaning was clear as he looked at his other side, "and you've left eight." She stared at him, her mouth moving, but no sound came out. She tried again. Riddick didn't want to waste the time, "I know," he growled as he pulled her off the console and onto her feet, "you're sorry. Now what's this bag look like?"

She took a deep breath to stabilize her thoughts, then deliberately tore her eyes away from him and described it quickly. He nodded, then sent her to search another section of the ship as he eyed the piece of bulkhead again. It looked to be wedged this time. This piece of debris was becoming annoying. He was wrestling with it, ignoring the protests of his shoulder as he tried to shift it without getting sliced on the torn metal when he was surprised to hear a string of delicate curse words spewing from the elegant little frail's mouth. "What?" he asked in exasperation over his shoulder.

Her voice was totally disgusted. "I just ripped my stockings. Oh… and I found the First Aid kit."

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**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**River of Love** – Glad your still lovin' it. Thanks!

**Padme4000** – Thanks for the continued encouragement. The way a person laughs **can** tell us something, can't it? I honestly hadn't expected anyone to really key in on that ;o). It just fit the situation.

**JacklynK** – Thanks! My attempt at something with a little humor. It's funny; I'm not even sure where the term 'frail' came from in MY head – it just popped up and suited. I'm sure I must have heard it somewhere a long time ago :o) (**PS to my other readers**, JacklynK is an excellent author in her own right – check out some of her stuff. I think you'll enjoy it.)

**Inwe Tasartir** – Thanks bunches! I hope I can keep it up!

**Quinnell** – I once read something written by an aircraft crash investigator in which they said it sometimes baffled the mind trying to figure out how some people survived a crash and why others died, but I figured the cryotubes would offer a little more protection too, that and they were further back in a more protected portion of the ship. Thanks for the encouragement!


	5. Chapter 5: Dress for Success

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 5**

**Dress For Success**

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Once the bulkhead was shifted again, Riddick saw their search was going to be limited. The hall led to open air. The aft cabin was simply missing, but they did start finding the things Riddick was looking for once they hit the lockers. More often than not it took Riddick's brute strength to man handle the doors open so he gave Denise the chore of carrying the salvage out of the ship and collecting it in a central location. His shoulder protested the strenuous use but he ignored it. Rest and recuperation were two things that rarely had a place in his life. As he went through the lockers Riddick pondered on a minor mystery. The possible explanations were numerous. The ship showed every evidence of being well broken in, but it appeared Jenner's crew was new to it. They'd claimed their lockers, but had yet to personalize their space as most did with the girlie pics and shots from home that usually ended up stuck on the doors and sides. Recent purchase? If so, he hoped they hadn't opted for the extended warranty.

When he wrenched the warped door of the final locker open he knew he'd found Jenner's. It not only had what he was looking for, but a little more besides. The contents of the locker were all helter skelter, but as he pulled things out Riddick found - among other things - his knives, Denise's bag with a little pink PCD tucked in an outside pocket, a duffle bag, the .44 Special to match the slugs, and, surprisingly, even a small jewelry box with a half dozen pieces of first-class jewelry. "Who woulda guessed you had such good taste, Jenner," he chuckled, pleased with the find. "Your old lady may miss you after all." Things he didn't need were added to the pile of junk on the floor, but the jewelry went in his pocket, then the blades went where they belonged.

The next item was the PCD. It wasn't a cheap one designed for one planet. This little Personal Communication Device was an expensive interstellar version designed to hook into any communication grid it could reach. It didn't mean the girl was a mob courier, but it did confirm she traveled a lot. He slid it open, but the holo-field remained dark. A brief investigation showed it wasn't just powered down but the primary ID chip had been removed and the power unit had been disconnected altogether. Saved for resale? Likely, but in the meantime someone didn't want this PCD pinging any grid it came in contact with, and neither did he... accidentally or on purpose. He dropped it on the floor and crushed it under his heel before kicking it into the pile he was making.

The last item of interest was Denise's bag, and it was interesting indeed. About the size of a medium tote, it looked quite fashionable with scaly silvered fabric and stylish gold accents. It had a couple convenience pockets for small items you might want immediate access to like the PCD on the outside as most fancy totes did, but overall the piece was anything but common. Somewhat cushy sided, it had a large flap that lay over the top and sealed the opening completely with a defusable molecular bond, and protected beneath the rest of the flap on the side of the bag was a small numeric keypad with keys that read the fingerprints _and_ DNA as the user tapped in the code. If that wasn't enough, the fabric itself wasn't just cloth, or leather, or any other material commonly found in ladies accessories. It was a super high-tech polymer that was nigh near indestructible and had rather unusual protective qualities.

He'd seen it once before, proto-type armor had been sent to several merc units, including his on Sigma 3, for testing. While the material seemed reasonably soft and supple to the touch, it reacted to sudden force with equal resistance protecting the wearer better than steel plating. Nothing short of a plasma grenade or, oddly enough, Spitfire venom, could damage the stuff, and anything powerful enough to do that would destroy the contents. Unfortunately the fabric was inconceivably expensive making it impractical for combat. It did, however, evidently have it uses on a smaller scale. The bag, more than anything the frail said, convinced him she was probably telling the truth. It was the ultimate courier's bag perfectly disguised as just the kind of travel bag or mega purse a fancy working girl like her might carry, and it also explained quite neatly why Papa Leone wanted _her_. You couldn't get to the bag's contents without her.

The bag had some serious heft - the girl didn't travel light. He put it just under 9 kilos, so he guessed she had more in it than might be carried in the average purse, but before he could look it over more thoroughly Denise returned. "This interest you?" Riddick called thinking he might be able to buy himself a bit more time, and before her eyes could completely acclimate to the dark interior he tossed her the first piece of jewelry he could fish out of his pocket as he shoved the bag back in the locker. The trinket sparkled as it passed through a crack of sunlight and she caught it deftly.

After looking at it briefly, her eyes went wide with surprise. "My bracelet!" she exclaimed. "Where did you find it?"

"Jenner's locker." He gestured off handedly behind him.

"That thief!" she snapped. "I was wearing it when he grabbed me." And instead of taking the jewelry outside to look at it in the sun as he hoped, she hurried over. "Did you find anymore? A necklace? Earrings?" But before he could answer one way or the other she saw the handle of her bag hanging out of the locker. "My bag! I'm saved." She pulled it out. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Riddick, there's no way I could go home to Tony without this, not to mention what he'd do to me if I lost the disks." She hugged the bag as if it were a long lost friend, then slung it over her shoulder with little regard for the weight. "I'm ready to go now," she grinned.

Riddick stared at her. Was she kidding?

"Carryin' that suitcase?"

"It's not _that_ heavy." Her excitement faltered under his derisive scrutiny. "I carry it all the time."

She was obviously used to carrying her purse's weight in civilized surroundings, but he was betting she'd find it would get heavy over a long haul. "And you're wearin' those?" he asked looking down at her feet... at her bright pink high-heeled footwear.

"What's wrong with my shoes?" she snapped.

"We're hiking," he stated the obvious with more patience than he felt in the face of such stupidity, "through a rainforest."

"Oh," she said quietly staring down at her feet. "I guess I hadn't thought of that."

Riddick closed his eyes and sighed. He wasn't sure she was worth this, but she might be teachable.

"Stay here," he ordered and he strode out of the wreckage. Vera had the smallest build of the two female bounty hunters, and he knew where her body was. He knew where all the bodies were.

When he returned he had not only a pair of boots, but socks, pants and shirt. As he stepped back in the ship, he was once again assailed by the botanic garden that clung to the girl, and as he looked around he found her sitting atop the targeting console again, her knees pulled up under her chin with her arms wrapped around her legs. She seemed to be staring at something, and as he followed her gaze he found a sludgy ribbon of blood draining from the pile of bodies around the corner. She stared at it so thoughtfully that he would have thought her oblivious to his return had she not, after a moment, spoke.

"Mr. Riddick," her voice was soft. "Shouldn't we do something?"

He looked at her, considering the question, and when no answer was forthcoming she lifted her head and looked at him.

"You know, bury them or something?"

This time the answer was immediate. "No."

"But we can't just leave them here," she protested.

"Yeah, we can," he returned flatly. "They're dead meat. They don't care."

"But they were human beings," she persisted. "Don't they deserve that much?"

"Sister," he growled, "they were credit hungry bounty hunters about to sell my ass to slam just to fill their pockets." She winced at his callous anger. "They don't deserve nothin'. 'Sides, we don't have time."

That surprised her. "I would think time is the one thing we DO have." She looked confused. "We could bury them this afternoon, sleep here in the ship, and start out fresh in the morning."

"Uh-uh," he shook his head. "You're forgettin' where we are, what kind of things may live here. When scavengers smell blood, they figure it's time to eat and they don't much care if some of it's still kickin'."

She pouted, an unconscious expression that was actually cute, not that it would sway him one way or the other. "It just doesn't seem right to just leave them here like this," she murmured.

Riddick drew a deep breath, threat and fury on his tongue, then caught it and forced himself to relax. This girl was learning how to push his buttons, and she didn't even know it. "Fine," he finally offered in a calm before the storm tone. "You want to bury them? Go ahead. Bury them, but I ain't helpin' and I ain't waitin'." He didn't need to make threats. If the frail had even a few grams of brain in her head she'd realize just what that meant, and she did.

Denise suddenly looked past him, out the open hatch into the greenery. Somewhere in the distance something screeched. She blanched and offered no further protest.

"Good choice," he rumbled scornfully, then stepped forward. "Put these on." He set the bundle of boots and clothes forcefully in her lap, and then turned to go, casually, deliberately, finalizing the earlier argument as his foot landed squarely in the ribbon of blood splattering it into a burgundy blossom around the tread of his boot. He had no respect for these merc hunters, not a single cell of them... save one, and he'd done what he could for her after he stripped her. He continued toward the hatch tracking dead mercs on the sole of his boot grinding their essence into the floor one tread at a time, and was surprised at the vindictive satisfaction it gave him.

Behind him Denise was exploring his gift, and he nearly reached the hatch when he heard her start.

"Oh no," she began, gaining volume as she continued. "Oh no, no, no, No, NO! Please don't make me wear these."

He turned to look at her as the boots tumbled to the floor. She sat holding the shirt and pants away from her as if they carried a plague. Granted they were still damp with fluids intended to stay _inside_ Vera's body, but it would dry and the frail's perfume would kill any scent.

"They're a damn sight more practical than what you're wearing now," he snarled.

She had gone pale. "I'll wear the boots," she whispered. "Just, please, please, don't make me wear these." She stared at the pants and shirt and the offending damp spots of dark and varied colors.

Riddick thought about it briefly. It wouldn't kill her to wear them, then again he might if wearing someone else's guts was more than her pitiful little secretary psyche could handle and she drove him nuts over the hike out. Her stockings offered none of the protection pants would, but it didn't really matter to him. Tony Gallo would be glad if Riddick got the girl out alive, and Papa Leone wouldn't care about anything so long as she could open the bag. A few scratches wouldn't matter either way. "Suit you'reself," he said, then turned and stepped out the hatch headed for the salvage.

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**River of Love** –Thanks! Updates may come a tad slower – I really need to get some stuff done on my stories other too ;o) but I'm having fun with Turn About. It definitely won't be forgotten.

**Padme4000** – Girly. Yeah, that would definitely fit the way Denise is acting wouldn't it? But those stockings were expensive! ¤LOL¤ Gotta keep priorities in place right? Hope it's continued to keep your interest :o)

**Inwe Tasartir – **Thanks! I'm tickled to hear that it made you laugh. Sometimes it's hard to know what others will find amusing, but I was seeing it in my mind's eye as I wrote it and I was giggling.

**JacklynK** – Thanks! No flattery, I enjoy your stories. I'm glad you're starting to enjoy this one more. In a way it is as much of a challenge as Christmas, but for different reasons. This one is a fun challenge :o) We'll see if I can make it turn out the way I want.


	6. Chapter 6: Ground Rules

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 6**

**Ground Rules**

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Riddick could only shake his head. As luck would have it the ship had come to rest infringing upon a small clearing of sorts leaving them dodging mostly wreckage and only scattered tree pieces. Denise had managed to clear a roundabout path to the least cluttered side of the clearing so that they wouldn't gash their legs walking through it and had organized their salvage there, and he did mean 'organized.' _Damn,_ Riddick thought sarcastically as he surveyed the results, _every crash should stow a secretary in the emergency gear._

The salvage was laid out at the edge of the clearing under the trees. Each type of item had its own stack, and each stack was neat and orderly. If Riddick didn't know better he would say stacks were even lined up alphabetically. Either the girl was obsessive compulsive, or she was dealing with the stress by finding a way to do what she did best. He didn't really care, so long as she didn't drive him to distraction in the process.

Sorting through priorities his eyes fell upon the First-Aid kit, or at least the components of it. There was nothing that hadn't been thoroughly shaken by their landing, if one were gracious enough to call it that, and the First Aid kit was no exception. It had quickly become evident that the box Denise found had not survived completely intact and at least a portion of its contents had escaped. Riddick had not been at all happy with that little fact, but he'd be damned if he was going to start a hike through the forest with this little city frail without taking _some_ precautions. That meant a med-kit - or at least as much of one as they could find in a half hour's worth of searching. It remained to be seen, however, how much of it they'd recovered and if what they'd found was still usable. He figured that job, or at least part of it, could be delegated once he got the box back in order so he dumped the contents and took a minute to wrestle the crack together before sealing it with Plastipair tape from the toolbox.

Handy stuff, Plastipair. Pulling the tape off the roll activated the catalyst embedded in the fibers and it would fuse and harden within minutes. It was sturdy too. If the med-box broke again, he guaranteed it wouldn't be along the crack that he'd just fixed. Once he was finished, Riddick set the box on the pile of med gear to cure as he carefully tucked the rest of the tape away to take with them. In a pinch it made a decent cast for broken bones.

That done he then set out to demolish Denise's neat little piles as he methodically sorted through the salvage and claimed what he could make fit in the duffle. If he didn't have room for something he tossed it into a new pile to get it out of his way and mark it sorted. If he were traveling alone he wouldn't have considered even half this stuff. He probably would have made do with his knives and water, maybe some basic meds for safe measure. This planning for two was different, and it felt a little odd, even if he was just doing it to ensure his payday. As he considered this he heard some shuffle and thump from the ship behind him and a moment later heard the tread of boots. That sound was followed by small gasp as Denise saw her careful organization being reduced to a single shambled pile of discards.

"But... I... You..." she stammered, then vented an exasperated, "MEN!"

Riddick straightened up and turned to look at her, intending to remind her just who she was talking to, but stopped when he found a chuckle in the back of his throat instead. Denise stood legs wide, fists on hips, eyes bright with irritation -- the absolute picture of vexation -- but he just couldn't take her seriously. It was the first time he'd really taken more that a cursory look at her in full light, and she was a piece.

Her hair, a bit mussed, was a reddish shade of brown, although the light brought a lighter shine out of it. She wore it short, slightly past her chin and curving in just a bit to frame her face. It took some maturity off her appearance as did her figure. That was not to say she didn't have one – she had curves and bumps in the right places – just not big ones. Like her, they were petite and slight – almost girlish. She could hardly be called a beauty, but her face was sweet with just enough of that expensive long lasting makeup stuff to accent her features. Her eyes were some tinge of golden brown.

Her outfit said 'young classy working girl' all over it. The top was loose fitting, some white faintly gold shimmered material woven with large blocks of color separated by slashes of gold on the front. It had, surprisingly, thus far escaped soiling, or perhaps that was part of its value. He'd seen advertisements for "slick" clothes which were supposed to "shrug" off stains. The more you paid, the more they could "shrug" off. The skirt, a short pleated little number that reached no more than half way down her thighs, was equally white and shimmery. Below that she had white stockings that would glow in the dark. In fact, if it came to trying to move at night, her whole outfit was a just-shoot-me-now shade of pale that made him uncomfortable, but he figured the odds they would be running into human predators this side of civilization were low, otherwise the scene over Vera's clothes would have definitely gotten ugly.

Below the trendy little ensemble, the left stocking bore a jagged rip several inches long by her knee – evidently more than any self-repair enhancement could handle - but that didn't bother Riddick any. What he did appreciate about that view were the legs inside the stockings. They were strong and firmly muscled. That, coupled with the fact that she had hauled and toted whatever he had given her without complaint while they unloaded, inclined him to believe what she said about working out. Maybe she wasn't going to slow him down as much as he thought.

All the elements of this "look" added to a deceptively youthful appearance, and that was not a bad ploy if you wanted to blend in and appear trifling and inconsequential as an errand girl with chancy cargo might. The world tended to think the younger a person was, the more trifling and inconsequential they were, but he knew that was a mistake. Some kids had more guts and sharper eyes than adults gave them credit for. Taking in all the factors, he decided he'd put her a little older than himself, closer to 25 or 26 instead of younger as he'd originally guessed, which led to another question. Was any part of this "ditz" a role she was playing, a role she'd played so long she was stuck in it or one that suited her because it came naturally? He was inclined toward the latter at the moment. It had come on her with consciousness, but he was willing to reserve judgment.

If his inspection of the merchandise had stopped there she might have kept her dignity, but it didn't. A little further down the curves of those shapely legs terminated in Vera's olive green socks with bright yellow cuffs and thick black combat boots. The contrast was glaring. Riddick's first glance traveled down her frame quickly, taking the effect in, but then he let his eyes travel up again in a deliberately provocative manner as a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. Denise blushed furiously, and her reaction in that ridiculous juxtaposition of mess, class and combat boots was just too much. The chuckle escaped.

"Sexy," Riddick teased.

He had an idea what her reaction would be. He was getting pretty good at anticipating the ways the other guy might act and knowing what _he_ was going to do in response. It was like playing chess on a live board, knowing every move the other player had open to them and figuring several moves ahead of that... of knowing what it was going to do to the whole game because on this board getting the king captured, namely HIM, was the least of his worries. But every once in a while the other guy made a move that couldn't be charted... like now.

Denise's face radiated shocked outrage in an instant. "Well, I never!" she exploded then spun on her heels and went stomping toward the edge of the clearing. The pleating of her skirt flounced up one way and then the other with each angry stride. THEN the citified frail who flinched at every screech, chirp or hiccup she heard in the greenery charged straight into the undergrowth!

"What the..." Riddick started, momentarily stunned, then his body was in motion leaving the duffle behind as he strode after her, his moment of amusement instantly transformed into irritation. "What's that baffle headed frail think she's doin' now?" he growled to himself as he hit the leaf work. "Ain't nobody gonna pay me nothing if she gets herself killed," but within a few strides he slowed. When he was outside her floral aura he could smell the crash, he could smell the blood, he could smell a lot of things, but so far he _hadn't_ smelled anything his instincts flagged as danger... Key words: so far. That didn't mean they weren't there, but he also trusted that the fine hairs on the back of his neck _weren't _trying to twitch. Might mean this moment was safe enough for a learning experience.

He could see Denise up ahead quick timing it along a vague trail of sorts and he set himself to pacing her instead of catching her. Silence wasn't an issue. Denise was making enough noise traveling through the vegetation as she muttered out loud about Jenner, the forest, himself and his idea of rainforest fashion that she could have provided cover for an entire squad. She carried on for over twenty meters, then suddenly, without warning, she stopped short and bent down. His foot came down out of step with her's but she was oblivious, and as soon as she finished tightening the straps on one of her boots she stood and stalked off resuming her angry rant.

She didn't stop till she was some fifteen meters further in. It wasn't far by Riddick's reckoning, but it put the ship out of sight. Denise continued to talk to herself - advertising her position - as she did private girl stuff, and Riddick felt no shame being there. He wasn't being lewd, the damn girl was making herself a fraqgin' target, and he didn't want _anything_ sneaking up on her... unless it was him.

It wasn't until she was done and had pulled herself back together that the frail finally fell silent, apparently surprised to find herself completely surrounded by green. She looked hesitant as her eyes began to search the brush looking for something familiar, but even if she _had_ been noting landmarks as she came in –- and he had his doubts -– they'd look completely new from the backside. Riddick crouched stock still in a patch of dim behind a bush as the girl's eyes passed over him. He was hidden, although he wasn't hidden well, per se. Anyone with any experience hunting would have no problem picking out the shape of him - the patches of solid color made by his skin and clothes, the smooth horizontal lines of his shoulders in a mostly vertical world - but she evidently had none. Her eyes scanned right over him without any sign of noticing, and shortly after that she began to look anxious. Finally, with an expression of trepidation on her face, she took a big breath and set her feet to moving on what might be a trail of some sort... at an angle that would miss the clearing all together.

He'd learned what he wanted to know. Now it was time for her to learn something else about traveling in the woods before she nixed his chance to get paid.

He set out again, more stealth in his movement than before, setting his pace not to follow her, but to pass her. It would have been even more fun to play "Stalker" for a while, really drive the lesson home, but they hadn't time for such a long panic inducing game regardless of its educational value. Instead he limited himself to letting a few branches move as he went by, which only heightened her nervousness and set her to warily watching the underbrush around and behind her as she walked.

Once ahead of her he slid into her path blocking it completely, but with her eyes over her shoulder she didn't even notice until she'd all but walked into him. She shrieked as the immediacy of a living presence suddenly impinged on her awareness and tried to jump back, but Riddick clamped his hands on her arms, holding her close and she went no where.

The menace of his nearness was nearly as overpowering as her perfume, and though she recognized him, might have even been relieved to see him, she continued to struggle as much out of fear of him as she did renewed anger. "Let go," she demanded, her panic warring with her fury. "Let go of me!"

Riddick held her in a vice like grip as she squirmed trying futilely to pull one arm free and then the other, a veiled rebellion smoldering in her eyes. "Don't leave like that again," he growled softly.

"You're crude and uncouth and I'm _not_ doing my private business in front of you in broad daylight," she blustered still trying to pull away, but there was something about it that sounded more like an excuse than a reason.

It didn't matter either way. Riddick wanted to shake her to see if something other than space dust fell out of those pretty little ears. "You will if I say you will," he informed her coldly. "You think things here don't hunt in daylight?" At that her vain defiance died. She looked around sharply then melted against him, her dread of whatever he pulled to her imagination overwhelming her fear of him for the moment. The rich brown hair under his nose smelled of the ever-present flowers, but so close he again caught the soft, tantalizing hint of that faint fear spiced musk that couldn't quite be grasped. _Damn her perfume,_ he thought again.

She shuddered in his hands. "OK," she whispered. "You're right. Who needs privacy?"

"Smart girl," he muttered disdainfully wondering if she wasn't going to be the death of both of them. "By the way..."

She looked up expectantly startling him with the diversity of color in her eyes. They were an ancient shade of dark gold flecked with auburn in a ring of gunmetal blue; an autumn day rimmed in thunder. Riddick stared at them. _Girl's not a complete eyesore_, he thought and felt her tremble against him faintly like a bird caught in a snake's gaze.

"...you're goin' the wrong way," he smirked and forcibly turned her in the right direction, giving her a push.

And he kept pushing, all the way back to the wreck. He pushed her pace and he pushed her temper, but she recognized that she had stepped onto dicey ground when she huffed off... had compounded it when she mouthed off, and she wasn't pushing back anymore. She had taken him a bit off guard... had showed more spirit than he'd given her credit for, and he wasn't sure he liked it. She _needed_ to obey him, to stay where he could see her whether she liked it or not, for both their sakes, but he certainly wasn't going to watch his tongue for the next five plus days just to protect her sensibilities. Another stunt like this, on the other hand, could walk her right into trouble and might just pull him in with her.

It was a fine line. The more time she spent safely in his company, the less she'd fear him -- simple familiarity -- and if he went too far trying to keep the fear factor up she might just decide the forest felt safer without him... until she got munched, crunched or lost. Hyping her fear of the woods was an option, but it might just set her up to freak when he needed her to think... if thinking in a crisis was something she could do. He had to believe she had some wits about her somewhere. Being a courier for an underworld boss wasn't a straight fluff job... unless Gallo was tired of her too and had set her up. Then again the cryo malfunction may have messed with her somehow. Time would probably tell there, but in the meantime he realized there might just be a better way.

The girl had an internal code. All folk did to one degree or another, and he'd already seen some evidence of hers: her coming back to thank him; arguing for burying the mercs; her loyalty to Gallo; even this little bit of stupidity all told him something about her, and he could use that against her. There would be no compromise, but if she agreed to something he had a hunch she'd hold to it... and she WOULD agree if she knew what was good for her.

He brought them back into the clearing from the downwind edge, and left her standing just in sight of it as he advanced well out of her floral aura into more natural air. He crouched just within the trees sampling the scene and the scents ensuring the dead mercs hadn't invited some company while the two of them were gone. All seemed quiet, and when there was no tingle on the back of his neck to contradict it he finally went back to collect Denise. He escorted her to the salvage with a firm hand around her arm then turned her sharply to face him. "OK, city girl," he growled, "you wanna get out of here?"

"Of course, I do," she answered plaintively glancing around, "Who in their right mind would want to stay here?"

Riddick didn't comment. No one had ever said he was in his right mind, least ways 'right' as _they_ defined it. Empty wilderness of any kind had all sorts of potential. A man could disappear for a long time in the right kind of wilderness, especially if certain secretaries were missing. Of course he wouldn't be able to collect anything if she went missing, and 25,000 was a lot of good reason not to stick around and hunt the fauna. "Then I got only two rules. You follow them and I'll get you outta here in one piece."

"OK," she said warily, "what are they?"

Riddick smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was a smile to send chills down the spine and make her wonder what he'd do if she _didn't_ follow the rules, "Number one; what Mr. Riddick says goes, and two, Riddick is _always_ right."

"But..." she protested faintly.

"Uh uh," Riddick warned dangerously, "You're forgettin' number two."

She drew a deep breath, then paused to listen to the forest around her as distant animals continued to make their presence known. She shuddered... then nodded. _Okay,_ Riddick thought,_ this just might work._

"That's a good girl," he acknowledged. "Now," he pointed to a box on the ground that had a strong resemblance to the broken First Aid box with stripes of Plastipair tape across it's back, "while I finish packin' our snatch & go, you inventory the med-kit. Don't bother me with what's missing. Just tell me what we got."

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Padme4000** – Thanks for the review. Hope you liked this one too cause she's still pushing, although I suppose you could say push came to shove in this chapter, LOL. Hope to hear from you again :o)

**Shaden** – Thanks for sticking around :o) I'm having fun with this one, mainly because of the interactions. Denise is the kind of girl you would NEVER expect Riddick to be interacting with so it's fun trying to imagine how he is going to deal with her AND keep him in character. Let me know if I succeed _(or fail)_. Thanks also for your continued prayers, you've been (and will be) in mine many times.

**Beautifully Disturbed** – Thanks! I hope this one was worth waiting for :o)

**Viggoch** – I'm glad to hear you're enjoying Turn About. I appreciate the review :o) I've listed my other Riddick stories in my promise below. Sadly they are all still "in progress" so I now have four ways to keep my readers hanging, LOL. The others are more serious than Turn About, though. There just aren't many ways I can think of to have fun with a character like Riddick and keep him IN character. Hope you find another you like despite this.

**Opera 14** – Thanks so much! Hope you continue to enjoy it.

**NOTES:**

I've been doing a little research and have educated myself slightly on temperate **rainforests** (not jungles as I incorrectly wrote); a COMPLETELY different kind of rainforest from the tropical ones I was more familiar with. I've edited the references to "jungle" in my past chapters and hope to do the ecosystem a little more justice in future ones. If you'd like to have an idea what kind of beauty Riddick & Denise have found themselves stuck in, stop by my profile and check out the links I have listed at the bottom in the section Regarding Stories I've Written.


	7. Chapter 7: Upgrades

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 7**

**Upgrades**

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Denise set about reconstructing the first aid kit with the same determination she had applied to organizing the piles of salvage. As he worked a few meters up wind of her Riddick kept watch over the frail out of the corner of his eye. She'd had the pile of med-gear culled and sorted in short order and was checking what they'd found against the inventory printed on the inside of the lid. He had to admit sorting was one thing she was good at, though what purpose it'd serve once they hit the trail he couldn't figure.

When he was finished he joined her, trying to ignore the invisible garden that surrounded her. It didn't matter now if she couldn't make heads or tails of the tools, but it was to his benefit to be sure she knew how to use the contents of that box. "You know what to do with any of this stuff?" he asked as she flipped open a dented interior compartment to check the pieces of a small hand-held dermal regenerator nested in high density foam.

"This I _do_ know," she answered with some small measure of confidence. "I took a refresher First Aid course just last year and I've even had some Emergency Med-Tech training. Tony had all his secretaries take it," she explained as she pulled pieces from the foam. "He figured it'd be a good idea since some of the boys can't use hospitals and street docs that can be trusted are expensive. The idea is we handle the in-between, maybe stabilize the worst and buy some time." Although she seemed nervous under his scrutiny, he had to believe she was familiar with handheld Dar-Gens -- maybe even this model in particular -- as she began to assemble it after only a brief glance at the instructions.

_Interesting_, Riddick mused. Not that he was complaining. He'd take a medic over a secretary any day. He just wasn't sure how much faith he was ready to put in this one. A medic had to keep their head when everyone else was getting theirs blown off. So far he hadn't seen that in her.

"You ever had call to use that training on somethin' serious?" he asked off handedly.

Her hands stopped moving. "Once," she said reluctantly.

"What was it?"

"Gunshot."

"Do any good?"

"No," she returned shortly then made her hands start moving again.

_This conversation ain't goin' nowhere._ It was obvious he wasn't going to get much out of her on the subject unless he pried it out one word at a time. Had someone died because she shorted out or did she blame herself for something that couldn't be helped? He supposed it didn't really matter. With just the two of them there weren't any alternatives. She either could or she couldn't, and knowing one way or the other wasn't going to make him any less careful. "Encouragin'," Riddick commented, but Denise didn't react.

Instead she picked up the last piece, the power cell, and frowned as she found a dent in the casing. The dent didn't interfere with the connection, but as she turned the unit on and checked the display she looked at him uneasily, as if she were afraid he'd blame her for the results after her admission. "The cell's damaged," she murmured, "It's only reading a partial charge."

He knew it wasn't her. He'd been watching; she's gotten the assembly right. "How much?" Riddick looked over her shoulder.

"Just over half. And the solar recharger is over there," she indicated her own pile of discards. He could see the recharger... in pieces. It was clearly a lost cause.

"Then no one better get hurt bad," he commented pragmatically. "Take it apart. Don't waste the cell." She obeyed immediately. "What else we got? Anything missing I can't live without?"

Denise looked at him sharply. Riddick grinned evilly and she blanched before shaking her head as she began to rattle off the inventory and it's discrepancies as she repacked the kit with shaken efficiency; small working Steri-field, wound cleansers, topical anesthetic spray, Stanch pads, wound seals, wraps, derm-glue, Clotto/spray, pressure packs, a hot/cold pack, one set of med-tools, a bio-guide... A bio-guide was good. Once its sensors were attached it could advise treatment so that even a scatter brained secretary who dumped any medical training she had might still manage to do the right thing. And this unit was one of the better ones. This one integrated an OsmoPak - another useful device capable of administering IV fluids and medicines. The integrated versions allowed the bio-guide to administer whatever was needed according to the patient's readings. It had to be positioned correctly to work, and any IV fluids and medicines called for had to be loaded, but it was a good unit. It had been a well-equipped kit, and remained decent even with the items that were missing and discarded. She fit it all in neatly. It wasn't until she turned to the other compartment containing the hypo and the drug capsules that she hesitated. "What is it?"

"I've gone through this once already. There's more here than is listed." She began to read off the names on the cylindrical flexiglass capsules against the list as Riddick mentally confirmed their uses. Clotto/internal – stupid name for a useful drug that boosted the blood's clotting factor, this version was a last gasp effort to stop massive or internal hemorrhages the spray couldn't touch, but dosage could be prickly so it was best used with caution; 4 IV bags of GenHem – Concentrated just add water no-type blood substitute for use with the OsmoPak; Spectracillen-V - broad spectrum antibiotic w/ viral inhibitor; Benestine - local anesthetic; Anni-All - broad spectrum anti-venom - it couldn't counter all toxins, but it carried the base antibodies to counter a lot of them; ImmunoBoost – a super charge for the immune system to fight infections and diseases, but used too often it so screwed up the balance that the body would begin attacking itself; Stabrafin - another last ditch drug, an epinephrine cocktail to jumpstart the heart and other critical body functions; Morphine - tried and true pain killer he'd avoid at all costs if he could... She rattled off a few others. Each he recognized –- pretty standard med-kit fare -- until she came to the last. "This is the one not listed; Siestinal." She held up the last capsule. "It has your name on it."

Riddick took the capsule and looked it over carefully. "Must be the stuff Jenner used to knock out his marks." He handed it back. "Don't take it by mistake. If it's dosed for me, you might not wake up." _'Though that idea ain't without it's merits_, Riddick thought wryly.

Denise nodded emphatically and tucked the capsule in the rack leaving two slots open. Made sense that one was the Siestinal that had been used on him when he was captured. What and where the other one was was anyone's guess. They were lucky to have only two missing.

When she had everything packed he stowed the kit in the slot he had reserved for it in the duffle making sure Denise knew exactly where it was. That done, he took the frail back to the ship to help him collect one last thing. Between his muscle and her fine hands, they were able to work the thermal panels off a roughly intact part of the ceiling and remove a large piece of the tough, micro-thin, fibrous lining that held wires in place during construction. Although she seemed to have no clue what he was up to, she obediently helped him spread it out and repair holes before he finally folded it up and stuffed it in the bag with the rest of the gear.

The last thing Riddick did was put Jenner's .44 in the frail's hands – unloaded, of course. It was an experiment for the most part. "Here, take this," he said without preamble, carelessly shoving it at her barrel first. Denise reached for what he held automatically and barely had time to recognize what it was before her hands closed over it.

It was heavy and she almost dropped it, but she caught herself before the weapon slipped through her fingers. This was certainly a dark area. Riddick suspected with a boss like Tony Gallo she had seen a gun before. The real question was did she have any clue what to do with one. It was worth knowing if they ran across anything that thought they looked like lunch; it was worth knowing if he decided he _wasn't_ taking her to Gallo.

She didn't stare at it dumbly or drop it with revulsion as another woman might; she did, with a sudden intake of breath, quickly shift the piece in her hands so it was pointing away from her. It was a startled movement and there was no question that the sudden presence of the firearm in her hands shocked her, but there was also no question that she had actually handled a gun before.

_Very interesting. _

She held the gun by the butt, pointed down and away from her, much as she had held Vera's clothing earlier as she glanced quickly at him, a new shade of fear reaching out from her eyes to touch him, then she was looking back to the gun. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked uneasily. The piece looked rather large in her trim little hands.

"You've handled one of these before." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah," she said quietly. "Not this big, but I've handled one. I don't like them. They tend to make bloody holes in things."

"You prefer energy?"

"I don't prefer anything," she said flatly.

"Can you shoot it?"

"Why? You have the broad side of a warehouse you want killed somewhere?"

"How 'bout the broad side of that tree?" Riddick indicated a wide tree trunk over on the side of the clearing with a jerk of his head. It was a massive thing, probably eight or nine meters wide and built more squat than tall, its kind claiming their share of sunlight by virtue of their sheer width rather than height, although they could not be considered short by any means. There were others like it in the area, but none were as massive. Had the ship nosed into this one coming down, he doubted either of them would have got out in one piece, if at all. Call it chance, fate, luck... whatever. Sometimes it was just uncanny how a few seconds, a few degrees, a few meters... even a few millimeters... could make the difference between dead and walking.

Below the layers of lichen and moss the tree's bark was dark brown, but the color dominating it's surface -– the color dominating _every_ surface -- was green... jade green lichen, like velvet, was brushed across the dark surface, olive green showers of hair-like clubmoss hung from the branches, and green the shade of early dusk whispered above it all in the softly fluttering paw shaped leaves. The tree had knarly twisting arms that reached wide and up toward the canopy, each arm as green as the next. Riddick evaluated the fragility of the tree's green coat. There were a lot of hidey holes in a tree like that, so long as what was hunting you couldn't read the fact you'd climbed up.

Denise evaluated the tree as well then shook her head briefly. "No," she protested, "I don't like guns. I don't want to shoot..."

"Rule number one," Riddick reminded her briefly.

Her mouth snapped shut, opened again, then shut with a sigh. She raised the gun toward the tree cautiously then paused as she stared at the firearm a moment, recognizing the chambers she could see were empty. She looked at him quickly, relief etched on her features, hoping it had just been a test of her obedience, but that hope was shattered as she found him holding out a single shell. She took it slowly then tried to slip it into one of the holes without displacing the cylinder.

Riddick watched her efforts for a moment, then silently reached over and took the gun from her hands. With an easy gesture he shifted the cylinder to the side revealing all six chambers and held it out so she could slide hers in. From his pocket he fished out five more and filled the rest. That done he pushed the cylinder back into place and gave it a spin appreciating the smooth, heavy metal feel of the action. _Nice piece_ _if you like things that go bang._ He didn't mind guns; they had their uses. What he did mind was being dependent on ammo. Once the ammo was used up guns were just baggage, but here in this place he'd use it since he had it. He had an idea there might be something big out there. If the girl could use a gun all the better... for the time being.

The cylinder ceased spinning with a final click and Riddick handed the gun back to Denise properly. She took it with even more caution. "I really don't..."

"One," Riddick said simply, and she obviously didn't know if it was a reminder or the start of a count as her eyes went wide. She quickly raised the gun toward the tree. She held it tightly with both hands and sighted down the barrel, but as she tightened her finger on the trigger she closed her eyes and flinched away shifting her aim from the target.

That was enough for Riddick. He didn't need to risk her actually firing. The retort would carry for kilometers and he could already _'see'_ the results of her shot. Her stance was off and her arms were stiff as if she were trying to keep the gun as far from her as possible. When the gun went off the recoil would throw her back and she'd be lucky if she didn't end up hard on her butt. He knew what he wanted to know. If push came to shove she'd probably follow through and pull the trigger, but hitting the target was another matter all together.

He didn't have the inclination or the ammo to waste educating her and he didn't need to hear her complain about a sore backside all the way to civilization. His hand snaked out closing on the gun before the hammer could fall. At least she probably wouldn't shoot herself if she had to pick the piece up. "I'll take that," he growled, and shoved the weapon back in its holster. Jenner's belt didn't fit him so the holster was shoved in his waistband, but it was better than nothing. "Get your bag. We're leavin'."

Denise looked relieved and rushed to obey, her heavy boots thudding hollowly across the ground. Riddick watched the frail move and considered what he had: one secretary, basic uptown carrier model with a beta version medical upgrade and a gun handling sub routine. She wasn't you're every day version of secretary, but his opinion of her had improved only marginally.

Denise returned shortly with her bag slung diagonally so she had both hands free. "I'm ready now. I promise. I won't slow you down."

"Yeah," he returned sarcastically, "We'll see 'bout that," and turned on his heels leaving her to follow. At the edge of the clearing he snagged the duffle and pulled it up onto his shoulder, but before he left altogether he paused and looked back.

It really was incredible, and it was entirely possible there would be no search at all. Behind the ship was destruction... trees sheared, some completely toppled, pieces of the ship, large and small, strewn hither and yon through the undergrowth. The only thing that had truly remained "intact" was the cabin and that was using the word in the most abstract way. They'd left a trail through the forest canopy that any satellite camera would be able to pick up, but he suspected it would take Tangiers some time to convince planet security that a ship of mercs with a single prisoner was worth the effort. If they did there would still be a lot of trees to search, and when they saw what he was seeing now from the topside they might just come to the same conclusion he had. There really should be no survivors. If Riddick were a religious man he would have probably been on his knees thanking God, but he wasn't. Riddick glanced upwards. "Nice try, sucker," he smiled darkly. "Better luck next time."

Leaving the clearing they were immediately enveloped by the forest. Without a frail to target Riddick was slightly more mindful of the aesthetic details of his surroundings. Survival training had taught him a great deal about a good number of climates, and this was among the best to be stuck in. The temperature remained fairly constant, between 16 and 27 C, except in the winter when it might just reach freezing, and the amount of life -- plant and animal -- supported by each kilometer was astounding – nearly the equivalent of one good sized human every meter.

That was easy to see just by looking. It seemed only two colors existed – dark and green, and this time Riddick actually took note of just how _many_ shades of green there were. Every shade Riddick had ever seen was represented, even a few he'd only imagined, and in between were new ones. Scattered around them in abundance were ferns; every thing from the great silver green ferns that grew like frondy umbrellas to heights above Riddick's head to lacy Kelly green bunches that grew no taller than his knees and sheltered ground plants that looked like flights of delicate malachite butterflies. Leafy bouquets of green edged with crimson sprouted in patches from the joints of dark jade brushed limbs. Green mixed with blue and sea foam in splotched patterns on broad heart shaped leaves sprouting from rough vines that twisted up umber trunks. Other vines hung here and there like hurriedly strung party streamers, each draped with tresses of olive clubmoss. He saw at least a half dozen different types of trees of varying sizes -- both broad leafed deciduous and sharp needled evergreen conifers -- some as much as seventy meters tall. And that just scratched the surface of what was around them.

The ground was fertile, covered with layers of dead leaves, needles, and twigs being consumed by more mosses and lichens as well as mushrooms which all released the nutrients back into the soil. Even fallen trees carried a thick green carpet that would eventually eat them to nothing feeding the forest as they did. Many had saplings growing along their length, and once they were gone and the saplings matured it would look like the trees had been planted by man because of their neat straight rows, but it was a completely natural process. Life had more than a toehold here. There wasn't the incredible diversity one would see in a tropical rainforest because of the winters the temperate rainforest had to cycle through, but the number of different plants visible in a single glance was still staggering, and each seemed to have it's own shade of green while above them scattered leaves on the trees caught the sun's light and lit up like individual fragments of stained glass. The very air seemed green and alive. It was a wild place... an animal place... and he felt quite at home.

Riddick set an easy pace - easy by his standards anyway. The frail had to work a little harder. He wanted to test her endurance and put the crash site, with its pile of merc meat, a good number of klicks behind them before night moved in which wasn't all that many hours away. He was relatively certain she _couldn't_ keep up with him if he decided to move out, but he also didn't need to prove it and doing so would be counter productive so he let her keep her little delusion and watched her closely.

She kept the pace, although not without some difficulty. It wasn't so much the speed that seemed to be her problem as it was basic motor skills. She occasionally stumbled and faltered and there was _no _semblance of quiet to her steps, but Riddick suspected at least a portion of that had to do with the borrowed footwear. She'd been nimble enough in heels on the ship. Despite it she didn't lag, although it was evident that keeping pace was at least a mild exertion as the bubble of smell around her grew more potent. Riddick tried to keep just ahead of it, but if a breeze came wrong it was all he could smell. It was annoying, and more than that it drowned out the scents of the natural flora around them, and with it the fauna. Riddick wasn't concerned at the moment, but he had a feeling he might be later. Time to explore that subject.

He pulled up at a place where the ground was clear –- meaning not buried in ferns and you could actually see your feet -- and pulled out the water bottles as Denise caught up. He punched the little button recessed on the bottom activating the system and heard a faint hum as an intense purifying light briefly illuminated the inside of the shielded survival bottle. This first use dissolved a protective seal over the opening so they could drink the water inside. Subsequent activations would sterilize most any liquid they chose to refill it with. If need be these bottles could even filter out toxins and chemical contaminants, but that process cost time and power so it wasn't recommended unless absolutely necessary. "Here," he ordered and she took it without protest. With a cursory glance at a tree trunk and his surroundings Riddick leaned back, and the frail relaxed, carefully settling herself on a mossy rock as she perceived they weren't going to resume immediately. "What _is_ that stuff you're wearing?" Riddick asked before taking a long swig from his own bottle.

Denise glanced at her clothes, unconsciously pulling her skirt toward her knees as if she wished it would cover more than it was designed to, and looked back at him puzzled. "What stuff?"

"That _smell_. It don't go away, and since we started walkin' it's got stronger."

"Oh," she brightened. "It's Channel 15-29. It's a subcutaneous perfume."

"Subcutaneous," he repeated. "You mean like injected?"

She nodded taking a brief drink as she pointed to a location under her right arm. "Right there," she explained as soon as she lowered the bottle. "They've got it synthesized in such a way –- don't ask me how, I've no clue..."

_About a lotta of things,_ Riddick added silently.

"... -- that when it's injected there, it is somehow picked up by all the major sweat glands almost instantly. Wild, huh? Where I live the atmosphere is pretty thick and muggy so scents have to be pretty strong. Perfume applied topically is just a waste. Subcutaneous injections don't fade or wash off because they're exuded from the pores."

_Thick and muggy. Know at least two planets that fit that bill,_ Riddick considered briefly_._ He knew one of them was in the same sector as the Breken System, although he'd never been there. Wouldn't be going if it could be could help it. He could deal with any environment he had to, but there were reason's 'thick and muggy' was last among his preferences and she'd just given him another. If he did go, however, he was tempted to pay a visit to whoever invented that damn perfume. _But that's neither here nor there at the moment, what I want to know is, _"How long's it last?"

"It depends on what you do. One injection lasts around 3 to 4 standard weeks if you're taking it easy. Less if you're working out. I got this one just before Tony sent me to make this delivery."

_Just got it._ Riddick closed his eyes and sighed. _How did I get so damn lucky?_

Denise went on to babble about how the whole process of choosing a foundation scent was very sophisticated based on likes and chemistry, and that after you had a foundation scent you could build on it using one day or one night injections to alter it for special occasions, but she didn't usually bother unless it was really special... Riddick didn't give a damn about the process, but one thing seemed clear enough to his nose and to his ears, "So you're saying it gets stronger when you sweat?"

"Yes," she answered pertly, completely ignorant of the problem she was causing with her fashion statement. He wondered briefly if either boss would pay him for a one armed secretary. Papa Leone maybe, but Riddick decided he wasn't ready to damage the merchandise on the off chance of spoiling the deal with either one. He liked having options.

Riddick snapped the cap on his on container with more force than was necessary and shoved it back in the duffle before he plucked the other from Denise's hand. "Makin' love to you must be like rollin' in a damn hot house full of flowers," he commented grimly as her container joined his own, "You better hope this place don't have giant bees 'cause you're going to be leavin' a scent trail that's gonna carry for whole kilometers."

Her eyes grew wide as she began staring at all the lush growth around them and Riddick pushed past her knowing it wouldn't take her long to kick it into gear, nor was he wrong. Within moments he heard a rush of steps as she raced to catch up, and the thought of giant bugs evidently opened whole new avenues of thought in the frail's brain. As they fell into pace she began looking around with a new nervousness and picked up her pace to be a little closer to him, "Mr. Riddick, do you think this place has spiders?"

Riddick made no answer, and after 50 meters further her pace increased again putting her almost on his heels, "Mr. Riddick, do you think this place has snakes?"

It was going to be a _LONG_ hike.

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Padme4000** – Thanks! City girl, yes, but maybe not quite as useless as she originally appeared, eh? What do you think of her now?

**Hope and love** – Thanks again. Hope you liked this one too.

**Vinbabe** – Welcome, and thanks! This is Riddick's fandom; it wouldn't be right not to focus on him :o) No, Riddick's eyes have not been shined yet so he can still see color, but your right, once they are shined he won't. I have another post called The History of Riddick: A Writer's Guide if your interested_. _It's Riddick's history from official sources for the use of writers who like to pull on (or fit their stories in the vicinity of) the 'official' canon of the character. Since I posted it, I took the liberty of noting the location of my stories in it so you can see exactly where Turn About falls on his timeline if you want.

**Shaden** – You're right. Nothing really happened beyond character development so I'm glad you liked it anyway. This chapter wasn't much better, still primarily character development. Most of this story is about working with the characters, but I promise before it's over Riddick will get to kill something (No, not Denise! :o). It'll be big, with claws, but I'm still working on it. We'll see if I can write action as well as I develop "bimbos" :oP Thanks, and I'm keeping you in prayer.


	8. Chapter 8: On The Trail

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 8**

**On The Trail**

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**Author's Note:** Turn about is a stand alone tale, but it is part of a larger story arc. This chapter makes a brief reference to** Joshua Jacobson** is a doctor who was introduced in my story Be Still: Chances, in which Riddick has a chance to get all the bounties on his head dropped. Jacobson makes Riddick's acquaintance and offers him a place to start over, but, of course, Riddick's not allowed happy endings at this point. Things happen.

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They had put over eleven kilometers behind them when they came across a stream of clear water. The palm-like silver green fern trees reached up arcing over the water course, and above them taller trees reduced the sun to a comfortable layer of slowly dimming shade, but upstream Riddick could see daylight slipping through the trees. A clearing? He cut right following the twisty little brook through the undergrowth trusting Denise to tag along... not that he could lose her unless he tried. The frail had stuck to his tail like a burr.

They followed the stream up as it burbled through a pristine streambed under ferns and over rocks for a good thirty meters plus, and a short distance past that Riddick ducked under a canted tree trunk into a golden cascade of light. Fallen trees weren't uncommon in this place; they'd had to go over and around more than one of them already, but this was a little different. One of the taller trees had toppled a rainy season or five past taking a few of it's fellows with it. The resulting hole in the canopy invited the slanted shafts of late afternoon sun to splash down on the ground and dance above the waterway. The ferns and mosses had been burned away leaving a whole new ecosystem in this little corner of the forest that was dominated by grass, wild flowers and a few slender saplings aiming for the breach. Riddick surveyed the scene and saw a lot of potential, one being the ready presence of H2O and sun dried wood.

In survival situations one of the primary needs was water, and on an unfamiliar planet it was always one of the biggest questions. The ship's emergency gear, however, was set for that. "Take five," he told the frail as she came up behind him, and she sank gratefully to a stone. There was an edge to her face that wasn't tired, but she didn't offer any complaints so he didn't ask. Reaching into the side pocket of the duffle he pulled out a small probe used to determine water safety generally called a 'Swish Stick'.

It didn't sort out parasites; but it did give you an organism count so you could make an educated decision how to treat it. Organisms really went without saying, and you were stupid to ignore them even if the count was low, but equally valuable were the toxin readings. Just because a planet had or could be tailored to hold an O2 atmosphere didn't mean it was ideal for human life, but that didn't stop people from modifying entire ecosystems to suit the planet's conditions then trying to cram themselves into the equation. But even on "safe" planets there could always be localized contaminants. Riddick didn't smell anything that warned him off, but since he had the equipment why waste it. He stuck the Swish Stick in the stream and lazily moved it back and forth to get a good sampling. After a few moments a couple lights flashed green on its top.

_That's good._ Riddick pulled the Swish Stick and reviewed the readings. _ This place is lookin' better and better._ He considered the sheer irony of taking up residence here... the biggest payday in the galaxy living free on the doorstep of Tangiers Penal Colony... _if_ they didn't bother checking the wreck for survivors... _if_ he was willing to give up 25,000 credits. The first was a risk he just _might_ be willing to take, but the other... He was still weighing that option.

Every plan had its complications. First and foremost, the girl knew who he was and that was always a liability. He wasn't lying when he suggested he could help her get home, that her boss might be grateful, but would he be grateful enough to overlook who Riddick was AND fork over enough credits to make Riddick's efforts worth the while. He might. It _was_ one option. But gratitude was a chancy thing, and even if he was grateful, Riddick doubted Gallo was going to be 25,000 worth of grateful.

Her boss's rival, on the other hand, had already set a value on the girl and her cargo. There was no gratitude marker to play against his name so he'd have to be careful, but that one was a straight exchange - merchandise for cash, no honor among thieves. If he could keep Denise quiet til he had his money and was gone... He needed to know the terms of the grab. That meant only one decision to make now, stay or go, then decide the rest when they hit Breken 4, but that didn't bother Riddick. Planning on the fly was one of his strong suits, and if he went for the turn in, if the goods didn't need to be conscious on delivery, if the drop could be quiet... that Siestenal might just have a use. He was hopeful. Gratitude had its uses, but so did 25,000. 25,000 could take a low maintenance guy like himself pretty far off the beaten path. Maybe some little colony way out on the rim. Maybe far enough from everything to get lost and maybe forgotten.

For a brief moment his not too distant past crept up from behind him and his self-discipline faltered. He imagined the possibility of _future_ again. He imagined the love of one woman... a _wife_... a kid with his genes. _Damn you, Jacobson,_ Riddick cursed the doctor who brought those concepts to his thinking; who had stirred Riddick to consider the possibility of those prospects in _his_ life. The man was dead now, much like any chance Riddick imagined for his existence to suddenly turn normal... boring... ordinary. _Ain't possible... not for me._ Bounties weren't conducive to boring.

_...with God all things are possible,_ the memory argued in Joshua Jacobson's voice.

_Don't even go there!_ Riddick snarled internally at the memory, _Ain't possible! Not for me!_ and he forcibly dismissed the thought.

As he tucked the Swish Stick away Riddick stood and surveyed the clearing. It looked good so far. He dropped the duffle in Denise's line of sight so she'd know he was coming back and started walking. He knew she took his meaning when she didn't follow, although he was mildly surprised considering her wilderness paranoia.

He moved slowly along the edge of the clearing, staying just within the trees, and the further he got from the frail, the clearer the scents of the forest came in. He took his time, pausing frequently to check the woods for details, and by the time he got back around, he'd only found one thing that didn't set right with him. A single tree on the far side had long vertical scars that cut through the bark all the way to wood starting around two and three quarter meters up on the trunk. They were old, looked to have weathered a season or two, but as Riddick moved in to run his fingers over the damage and inspect it closely he caught enough of a species scent to identify the maker. As far as territorial markers went the sign was ancient, but caught deep in the scratches was an oily residue that had resisted the damp and the weather and it whispered faintly of cat.

Riddick took a brief moment to consider. Cats of any kind wouldn't normally be a concern if it weren't for that smelly little morsel he was dragging along with him, but he didn't think they would be a problem here. Sign this old likely meant the territory had lost its keeper and it hadn't acquired a new one yet. And then there _was_ that perfume of hers. Once they were tucked in for the night and out of sight, he didn't see any predators coming in hunting a box full of flowers. No guarantee, but they were odds he could live with. Yeah, this place would do fine.

As he came back around he saw the frail watching him and knew, as best she could, she'd never really taken her eyes off him - even when she was sitting she was following him. Something brushed his neck hairs as faint as a breeze and when Denise caught him looking her gaze dropped quickly. He couldn't smell her fear, but there were times he could almost feel it.

"We'll camp here," he announced abruptly as he walked up and she nearly jumped, but the look on her face was grateful.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked tentatively. He could see it. She was really hoping he'd say just sit there, but he wasn't going to be that sociable.

"I'm gonna teach you how to make a lean-to," Riddick grinned. "I ain't doin' all this work myself." He pulled his big knife from its sheath and flipped it down to 'chathunk' into the soil between her feet.

She squeaked and nearly jumped out of her skirt as the blade sunk in with a bare four centimeters clearance on either side. Her head snapped up with another of her "You could have..." looks, but she pressed her lips together and held her tongue.

"Go cut down those saplings," he directed. "Keep 'em long." She glared at him a moment, and then jerked the knife from the ground, stalking off gingerly through the long grass. She held the knife out away from her a bit, respectful but not afraid of it, and in her hand the blade looked like the younger cousin to a machete. "Watch your stockings," Riddick drawled after her. "It's sharp." She shot him a look over her shoulder before heading to the nearest tree, making short work of it in her anger. She dragged her victim back, gave him another look, and then stalked off after the next.

He watched her as she moved, keeping her distance from the edge of the clearing, not wanting to get any closer to the forest than she had to. Vera's big clomp stompers just didn't do much for her grace of movement. She was still coming across a tad clumsy but Riddick knew the boots had to be a big part of it. A smile quirked briefly at the corner of his mouth as he recalled her startled spin in those stupid pink high heeled pumps and the flashing eyes that followed. Yeah, she could move well enough. Probably could have hiked in those heeled things too for all of a klick or four, but it'd only be a matter of time before she'd have been barefoot. The boots might not fit, but they were better than nothing. There was, however, a painstaking care to the way she walked now that he took note of. And there was something else too... a bare hint. She said she worked out, so he'd expect she'd know how to move her own body... know her space... but he was seeing something else in her. Was it just starting to develop, or was it so subtle he was just starting to notice? There was a hint of hunter to the girl.

When someone threw a pampered house pet out in the wild, some died right off; they'd been tame too long. But some had an instinct, a whisper of wildness left in them, and if they were left long enough, if their situation was desperate enough, that instinct would come to the surface. Was that what he was starting to see here? Was there a hint of wild in this little city frail? His mind's eye took the qualities to the extreme and he imagined a wild haired, rag clad Denise launch herself from a tree limb to take down a deer with a stone shiv, then rise from the bloody mess looking at her hand as she muttered, "Damn. I broke a nail." It was enough to pull a chuckle to his lips, and it felt good to not be stressing over what was behind him or who was with him for the moment.

Riddick busied himself collecting leafy boughs and firewood until Denise finished her task, then he showed her how to strip the saplings into poles and secure them together into a frame with wire he'd salvaged from the wreck. After that he instructed her how to cover the frame with the boughs until the whole thing was layered with leaves. Denise took to the tasks he set on her quickly, but he noticed that the tight edge she came in with only grew tighter the more moving around she did. Something hurt, and he had a good idea what, but _she_ wasn't going to bring it up. Finally, as the golden of afternoon began to dwindle into early evening they shifted the leafy frame. It wasn't Riddick's first choice for location, but it was the best choice considering their situation. Between the foliage covered frame and the trunk of one of the fallen trees, they soon had a decent shelter and Riddick improved on it with the mesh material they had pulled from the ship, adding an additional barrier against the insects that were starting to make their presence known.

Next he showed her how to build a fire pit and set up the wood for a small low maintenance fire. He could have shown her more, but they wouldn't be needing to start a fire from scratch in the week or less it was going to take them to get out so he crushed and twisted a Fire Bug from the emergency supplies and tossed it in the tinder. While he had them out, he slid a couple of the little incendiary devices in his pocket just because you never knew when they might come in handy. The chemical reaction in the little pellet soon flared to life and ignited the bits of shredded bark and grass around it. The tiny blaze grew as it climbed up through the twigs, small branches and finally wood arranged above it. Before long a comfortable flame was flickering in the ring of stones. Taking a twist of a pungent green bark he'd found that smelled like a variation of cedar, Riddick made a little smoke bomb and put it in the lean-to although he wasn't quite sure why he bothered. The frail's perfume was strong enough to fumigate anything.

While the smoke bomb did its work he showed Denise how to get water from the stream without stirring up the bottom and how to activate the sterilization cycle in the water bottles. Finally he parceled out a share of the emergency rations. The light was starting to fail but the fire went a long way toward making Denise relax, leaving her jumping at only every third sound. The comfort and protection fire suggested to humans seemed as strong as the aversion it caused in most animals. Riddick, on the other hand, was completely content. Shelter, water, comfortable environment... even the food was passing fair. It wasn't fresh cooked, but Jenner's choice in emergency rations was decent. The little packages weren't much to look at, but they were a reputable company and they were top of their line. Palatable and nutritionally complete, they even had ingredients that, once in their systems, were going to discourage most biting insects, but he was betting, however decent they were, they were far from the fare Coulter was probably used to eating, and he watched her for a reaction.

She read the package carefully then followed the instructions to activate the heating element, and Riddick let her do it. If she wasn't going to pay attention to the one who knew what he was doing to learn the finer details, she could learn the hard way. Made to warm frozen bars to a chewing consistency in cold weather, the heat soon turned her bar to goo and he chuckled as she opened the package and looked with horror at the contents that bulged out when she squeezed it. He had to admit it had a strong resemblance to a few slimy soft bodied invertebrate life forms he'd seen, few of them edible. She looked to him and his appetizingly solid bar. "You don't waste rations," he drawled quietly with just enough threat to forestall her question, and she blanched. Looking back down at the goo she took several seconds to steel herself then cautiously put it to her lips. She nearly winced as she sucked a portion off, and grimaced at its texture or flavor or both, but she dutifully choked it all down following every bite with a large swallow of water.

When she was finally done her relief was clearly evident, and she threw her wrapper in the fire as he had done, watching as it writhed and shriveled surrounded by a brief aura of blue and teal flames. When it was gone she continued to stare at the flames as if hypnotized, and Riddick relaxed in the almost companionable silence. He hadn't known what the first night with this girl would bring, but if this was any indication he could tolerate her long enough to get her out and get his money.

After a time he sensed a faint restlessness beginning to stir in her as she began to shift and glance sidelong at him, but he let her decide how important it was. After a quarter hour more she finally turned her head toward him. "Mr. Riddick?" she said reluctantly, "I need to... you know."

"Really?" This time he let his drawl take on suggestive tones that sent her scooting back from him, and he chuckled. "Yeah," he relented. "Figured that'd come up sooner or later. Come on." He pulled a few things from the duffle then rose and stepped to the edge of the firelight. From his pocket he pulled a palm light. It was less for his benefit than it was hers. A thin veil of high altitude clouds turned the stars above into pale glowing spots behind a film, but combined with the light of a large moon edging toward full, enough light pushed through to illuminate the clearing and that was sufficient for casual moving around to his mind.

She stared at him, not moving, and Riddick grinned recalling her wide eyed expression. "You're safe enough, Coulter... with me," he glanced up at the dark trees meaningfully reinforcing her need to rely on him, to obey him. "I doubt Gallo'd show much gratitude if I got his errand girl mussed and fussed by gettin' overly familiar. It's in my best interest to keep you happy." She considered that, then got up slowly. She still seemed wary of him but as they moved away from the circle of light cast by the fire she moved in close. Riddick led her away from the camp to a spot between two of the fallen trees that he'd already scouted for the purpose, then handed her the gear and the light. "Clean yourself then the mess. No sense leaving any more scents than necessary to invite company here." _As if they could smell it over your perfume_, he thought sarcastically. "When you're done, head back to camp."

At that her eyes grew wide again. "You're leaving me out here? Alone?"

"I'll be close."

"How close?" she shifted angles, obviously torn between her fear and sensibilities.

Riddick grinned. "Close enough," and with that he left her. Her light tracked him a few meters until it suddenly dawned on her she'd been left standing alone in a piece of darkness with no shape, and by the sudden wild flashes of the light he knew she was checking out the location in a panic - probably almost as thoroughly as he had.

Riddick's path took him around the girl before she could get down to business. The air was already flavored strongly with the scent of flowers foreign to the forest, but at this distance he could pick up the natural smells - at least the stronger ones - as well. As he continued circling her position, her unnatural interference faded until it was lost downwind. This brought him to the trunk of another of the fallen trees, the largest victim, and Riddick scaled it with ease. From here the girl'd have her privacy, but if he heard her yelp, he could be over there across the tree trunks in a matter of seconds, and come in with the advantage of height.

He was satisfied. He crouched surveying the clearing from a new altitude over four meters up. Without the sun the clearing took on a whole new face, and spoke a whole new language. Under the night, illuminated by starlight and the greater portion of a moon, the forest traded its pallet of greens and browns for ones of midnight and blues with murmurs of silver. The great trunks laid out before him in their linear destruction were horizontal brushes of pale separated by chasms of total darkness. The grasses that had sprung up in the absence of their shade shifted faintly in the breeze looking like quiet waters cut by dark trails where Denise had walked and crushed it down. And around them different voices murmured from shadows, the more haunting calls of the nocturnal replacing the brighter sharper staccato of the day.

During the day the forest's sheer immensity was _seen_, but at night the dark hues gave it a solid weight that was _felt_. It pressed down and pressed in, but Riddick felt no threat in it. There was something about darkness that felt natural to him, and he could move through it better than most. He had a good sense of things near him and sounds took on shapes in his mind. Sometimes even smells revealed the topography of the shadows.

A leathery flutter swished by within a hand's breadth of his head but Riddick remained stationary. The sheer nearness of the thing made its scent sharp and intense for a brief moment before the breeze dispersed it, but he had caught its first faint unfoldings with the twilight when he glimpsed the creatures flitting among the darkening trees, and they were welcome. The bat-like creatures snatched the flying blood suckers drawn to his body heat from the very air around him. Until the repellant in the ration bars Jenner had so courteously provided kicked in, both he and Coulter would look like an easy meal to these kinds of insects so the little airborne acrobats who flitted through the air around him now were more than welcome. Riddick didn't know the little creatures' exact shape or color, but he knew they couldn't have a wingspan of more than twenty centimeters and he knew they were quick and maneuverable as he followed the sound of their swooping and darting by their clicking echolocation. The sounds shaped their flight in his mind with such clarity that he wondered if he might, by their clicking, be able to reach out and pluck one from the air.

But he didn't. Instead he kept himself motionless and let the rare heavy peace of the place rest on him. He closed his eyes listening, appreciating, relaxing... until it was broken by a soft growing sound. It wasn't a loud noise, or even a hostile sound per say, but it _was_ familiar, and he could see the source well enough. Coulter was on the move, and she had traded fear for anger, or was at least using the one to mask the other. He felt a flash of annoyance that she would ruin the almost sacred stillness of the forest, but as he listened to her new litany a measure of amusement returned.

The girl didn't know her own mind. One moment she was railing against the forest, the ravenous beasts prowling the dark and his leaving her alone in it, and the next she was ranting about the probable voyeurism veiled in his demand to tag along on her private business and how he might have done something about that bug before it sampled a tender portion of her anatomy... and she was _still_ going on about the boots. As she minced her way back to the fire she condemned every aspect of them from the synthetic materials and second hand fit to the soles as thick and inflexible as his head. He had a theory about those boots, and when a misstep along her way caused a quiet cry of pain and mild expletives, it was confirmed. Her last complaint had its basis in more than her simple dissatisfaction with his idea of rainforest fashion.

When she arrived at the fire, her tirade concluded, the implied security of its flickering light easing her anxiety, but not completely. She threw a few small sticks into the flames, watching as they caught, then looked out into the night... looking for him. There was a definite irony to this scenario - an empty headed city secretary looking to him, a convicted mass murderer, to keep her safe. He delayed a bit longer, but when Denise began panning the darkness with the palm light and calling his name it became obvious the peace of the moment had been lost. He stood, and as he did he felt a whispery tingle at the back of his neck again, this time accompanied by the faintest hint of an animal... a predator. A cat?

Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to set off his alarms, just shift his mode to caution. He'd pulled in enough wood to keep a minimal flame going. No need setting up beacons that would advertise their position. But if there were something out there that was considering paying them a visit, enough wood to make things a little brighter might be nice. He slipped down off the trunk and made his way over to a tangle of wood he'd seen earlier. He'd left it lay originally because it was within the clearing itself and a dense growth of light loving plants had come up through the bare branches of the old limb anchoring it down. There had been other wood more easily and less obviously acquired, but the starlight didn't reach under the trees and the darkness there could be hiding things he didn't want to be meeting unless he could see them clearly. He felt comfortable in the night, but there was no need to press his luck in a wild place, especially an unfamiliar wild place, when there was additional seasoned wood readily available.

Laying a hold of the thickest end he heaved up then pulled and twisted, ripping it loose from the ground. He growled aloud as a flash of fire went through his wrenched shoulder, but it didn't stop what he was doing. With a final yank he pulled the branches loose and set back to the camp, dragging the limb behind him flattening a swath through the silver grass. As he approached he saw Denise, crouched back against the trunk behind the fire staring toward the noise he was making with something approaching terror on her face, but she'd at least had the wits to arm herself with lit branch from the fire. She held the palm light in the other hand shining it past the fire flashing it back and forth trying to find the source of his noise. _She's not hiding in the lean-to. Guess I'll give her a few points for that_.

"Mr. Riddick?" her voice quavered as he drew nearer, "Is that you?"

"Yeah." He ducked his head as the light zeroed in on him, but she had the mind to avoid shining it in his face.

She quickly came around the fire to meet him. "Oh, thank goodness," she exclaimed, relief making her almost breathless, "I was scared to death."

She still held the flaming branch up defensively, and as he neared he glanced at it. "You plannin' to use that on me?"

"Oh, no! I wouldn't... I never..." she suddenly looked embarrassed and put the branch back in the fire, "I thought you were an animal or something."

_You wouldn't be the first,_ Riddick thought to himself but aloud he said, "Nothin' wrong with bein' prepared," as he considered her reaction. Palm light wouldn't be much use against an animal, but fire might keep it back, so she was 'armed'... at least the best she could be so maybe she's wasn't completely baffle headed. _Suppose I coulda left her with a shiv, but hackin' trees is different then fighting. Probably cut herself come to that, but she looks like she was ready to try if she got pushed to it..__. Maybe she would be able to do something if the chips went down._.. just maybe. He dropped his load at the edge of the camp. "Decided we might need more firewood."

"Oh," she sounded puzzled as she glanced at the stack he'd already collected then glanced into the darkness. "OK," she shrugged and brightened as she slid the light over his burden, "Did you bring dessert too?" Riddick turned to see what she was talking about and found her light focused on the tangle of green foliage caught in the branches. He hadn't paid much attention to it earlier, but now that he was, he saw what caught her eye. In the midst of those green leaves a number of dark glossy multi-lobed berries caught the light. "Those look an awful lot like a fruit Tony has shipped in every once and a while," she explained. "I think he called them blackberries. Do you suppose they could grow wild here?"

"It's possible," Riddick rumbled. It was more than possible, but he knew - just like the water - the fact that the berry looked edible didn't guarantee it was. People had done a lot of tampering with genetics as they expanded, and had made their fair share of mistakes along the way. Some things had been kept close to true - or at least as close as the new planet had allowed - some things resembled true but were very different, and a whole lot of things had been spliced and/or modified to a point they bore little if any resemblance to the original sources of their DNA. You never knew what you would find from planet to planet. To a degree each had undergone its own unique evolution although none of it had been random or natural, so it was very possible something resembling blackberries could be growing wild here. The question was how much like blackberries were they?

The scanner in the emergency gear designed to analyze organic substances for safety and nutrition hadn't survived the landing. It hadn't appeared to be a critical loss at the time. The intel he'd pulled off the ship's computer hadn't left him thinking they'd really needed it for this little jaunt; the environment they'd come down in wasn't innately toxic and they had enough rations to make it out... but _real_ fruit grown in _real_ earth... fresh... never dried, fried or frozen, never packed or preserved, never even stasised. That wasn't something a man got every day.

He selected a berry from one of the outer canes and pulled it loose with a slight tug. The berry was yielding and dark, but not _quite_ black. He suspected the ripest ones had been knocked off when he yanked the bush loose, but this one was close. He stepped upwind of her aura and crushed it slightly before putting it to his nose to inhale its distinct fruity sharpness. Nothing out of sorts. If there were toxins in the soil here, they would have shown up in the water so unless the berry itself was poisonous... he put it to his lips pulling a few of the tiny lobes onto his tongue where he crushed and explored them. Even 'safe' environments could have toxic plants... but no red flags started waving as the minuscule taste of fruit spread throughout his mouth. That didn't guarantee anything either, but Riddick knew what his senses were telling him. He was going on instinct. They'd kept him alive this long.

He sampled the rest of the berry with similar care. It was juicy, filled with an 'almost ripe' sweetness countered by a 'not quite' tartness. It was a flavor that could never be replicated by synthetic chemicals, min-grav hydroponics, fertilized field crops or artificially preserved food stuffs. It was a REAL wild berry, and there were no tell-tale hints that suggested the presence of anything harmful. He stepped back, plucked another one, and tossed it to Denise - a small dark object arcing in the flickering light of the fire but she caught it as easily as she had caught the bracelet that now adorned her wrist. "Feel like takin' chances?" he asked.

The frail stared at him as if he'd just said something profound, then laughed and he realized the irony of their situation had just hit her too. Alone in the woods with the Riddick-Man. She'd been living on chances since she'd slapped him. "Sure," she shrugged. "Why not."

They soon found out that the bush protected its succulent treasures with a wicked defense of thorns, but with a little teamwork they defeated it handily. Riddick dismantled the dead branches in their way and using his knives shifted the prickly canes this way and that allowing Denise's slender hands access to the near ripened berries. It required a near intimate closeness, and Riddick found himself frustrated again by the faint whisper of scent that teased from beneath the perfume. Before long she had a few minor scratches - from jumping at noises when her hand was in the wrong place rather than any failure on Riddick's part - and generous fistful of fruit for each of them tucked in her top which she had folded up to make a pocket for their harvest. This little convenience bared, for a short time, the pale skin of her midriff and left Riddick wondering, for that short time, if it were as soft and smooth as it looked.

A little while later found them sitting by the fire where Denise carefully divided the berries between them. There were berries the shade of deep wine to almost ebon with most every shade in between, and the frail took special care to see that they each received roughly equivalent portions, not only of berries in general, but of red to black. She had a sharp eye for the colors and Riddick had no cause to complain about her divvying skills. After that, they settled in quietly consuming their impromptu desert.

Riddick's hand barely contained his share and he took whichever berry his fingers fell upon appreciating the contrast of the sweet and the tart in whatever order they came, but Denise's smaller hands forced her to keep her portion in her lap where she sat cross legged just off to his side. She spread the berries out in a single layer across her skirt and considered them carefully before she picked up one of the redder berries in her collection and closed her eyes as she put it in her mouth. Riddick almost chuckled to see a shiver run through her entire frame at the tartness, but after carefully chewing the morsel, she looked down and chose another with equal care.

The berries seemed to captivate her attention for a time, even distracting her from the forest to some degree, but little by little her rate of consumption slowed as in-between bites she became thoughtful again, staring into the flames, and it wasn't long before Riddick realized she had begun stealing sidelong glances at his hands, at him, when she thought he wasn't looking. Not all the time - just occasionally - but it was enough. It was a subtle kind of attention, but he had learned to key into such things - it sometimes revealed a danger before the danger revealed itself - and he wondered what prompted this quiet interest. At first he thought she might have decided she wanted a few more berries... that she was watching to see if he ate all his, but even after his share was gone, he continued to catch occasional thoughtful glances in-between her intermittent looks toward forest noises and contemplative berry chewing.

"You got a problem with me?" he finally asked.

"What?" she answered quickly looking at him, and a moment later comprehension caught up with intake, "Oh... No. Why would you think that?"

"I don't like being watched. Puts the hackles up. Makes me think I should do somethin' about it."

"No," she said hastily, "I'm sorry. I was just thinking. I didn't mean to bother you... I didn't realize it would bother..."

"thinkin' 'bout what?" he interrupted.

"A-a-about?" Denise stammered. "Well..." she hesitated, looking away.

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking..." she drew a deep breath. "I was thinking you're not exactly what I expected for a mass murdering serial killer," she finished quickly.

Riddick's eyebrow twitched in amusement and mild surprise at her bluntly honest answer. "What were you expectin'?"

"I don't know... three meters tall with horns and fangs the way Jenner described you." She paused, then her voice dropped to something soft and uncertain, "I definitely would have never expected you to save my life." There was an odd weight to her statement.

"I'm full of surprises," he growled dryly, but as he did he looked at her curiously. There were things going on in that pretty little head. "You ain't exactly a run-a-the-mill secretary yourself."

At that she glanced at him quickly, then shook her head and laughed, "No kidding," but it came out a little forced. Riddick could tell there was some aspect of the conversation that left her uncomfortable. "Been there, done that, still can do," she continued, "but I guess the term secretary should be applied to me rather loosely now days. I'm doing more flying than filing." She stared quietly into the fire for a few moments longer then sighed. "This is not exactly what I planned to be doing with my life... this scooting across the galaxy making pick-ups and drop-offs..."

"So what's the problem?" he prompted. He could care less what she had had planned for her life, but if this got him new intel on either boss he could suffer through it.

"Hitches," she said flatly. "Just when you think you've got it figured out somebody throws a hitch in it. If not Jenner, then somebody else."

_Somebody else, huh? _"You suggestin' maybe I have?"

She glanced at him again, her eyes rich with complex emotions, then she said with mild sarcasm, "You saved my life. What kind of hitch could _that_ possibly cause?"

_Damn her perfume. _With eyes as full as that, he just knew there was a novel floating off her skin, but he couldn't smell an iota of it. "You tell me," he tried to hold her gaze but she looked down.

She carefully chose a blackberry from the half dozen left in her lap - she'd been sorting them, organizing them, saving the blackest ones for last - and put it in her mouth, savoring it before she finally spoke again with some small tone of resignation. "With all this traveling I've been doing, I've seen some of the nicer things the galaxy has to offer, but this isn't a job with an outstanding shelf life, and it certainly isn't known for its retirement plan. I've been trying to put some money aside but I recently incurred some unexpected expenses - a business deal went sour and I'm the one left footing the bill. If I don't make this drop, it's really going to hurt."

Riddick smirked. You don't make this drop finances are the last thing you're going to be worryin' about, but if you trust others the way you're trusting me I can see where one of your deals might go sour... or do you trust me? "You got reason to believe you ain't going to make it?"

She glanced at him, then shrugged, "When you work with the kind of people I work with, nothing is _certain_."

"You don't trust Gallo?"

"I trust him as much as I trust anybody, but in his line of work suspicion can be second nature. I'm way off schedule and Papa Leone _is_ offering a lot of money for what I'm carrying."

"You think he won't buy your alibi?"

"I don't _expect_ him to disbelieve me. I've known him since I was in tri-school... I was his daughter's best friend. When I needed a job, he gave me one and it sort of expanded from there, but now... I've never given him any reason to_ not_ trust me," she said hopefully.

Hmm... if she's knows the man that well and her guts warnin' be careful, maybe Leone is my best bet. "So what's the problem?" Riddick repeated.

"It's just..." she ran her hand over her torn stocking to Vera's yellow striped sock and pulled thoughtfully at the cuff with her thumb, "- as I have just been so rudely reminded - life doesn't always go the way you expect."

"Oh, yeah," Riddick rumbled, reaching across to help himself to a few of her blackberries, wincing as he did so. "Life is full of surprises." He popped her berries in his mouth and met her sudden startled gaze. "But if I say you're gonna to make the drop, you will. Square'n your story with Gallo's just part of the service."

_I just ain't said if you're gonna yet._

She stared at him caught between outrage at his pilfering and gratitude for his implied support, then something shifted as he reached up to rub his shoulder absently. "Did you hurt something?" she asked.

"Crash put my shoulder out of place," he answered dismissively. "Had to put it back."

The stolen blackberries were forgotten as her eyes went wide. "By yourself? That must have _hurt_." Her amazement was undisguised.

He shrugged the other shoulder, "Not the first. Must've pulled somethin' this time."

She pouted sympathetically for a moment and then brightened. "Maybe..." she said tentatively, "...maybe I can help."

Riddick stared at her.

"Tony always said I had good hands."

Give _her_ his back? That was different than just letting her walk behind him. That was sitting still, letting her get close enough behind him to touch... to _do_ something. Didn't matter if she was _exactly_ what she appeared to be. It felt unnatural giving _anybody_ his back that way. Riddick stared at her until her smile faltered, but it was irritation that replaced it.

"Look, Mr. Riddick, right now you're not only my sole companion, you're my compass, guide and first line of defense against any bag-nasty beasties that might decide secretary is on the menu. It's in _my_ best interest to see that you are in as good a shape to do those things as I can manage. Will you at _least_ let me _try_?"

Riddick stared at her a moment longer trying to read her face as he cursed the floral envelope he was sealed in whenever he was near her. There were a lot of emotions shifting around in those thunder autumn eyes, but it seemed the strongest of them possibly _was_ concern - if it was concern for him or concern for her didn't really matter. Either one would keep him safe. "Yeah," he finally rumbled, "You can try."

Riddick shifted so she could get in behind him, and the animal in him howled in protest. It wasn't like he'd never been this close to a woman before, but when he was, there a different kind of touching planned and they knew idiosyncrasies came with the fee. His idiosyncrasies were he liked his women all natural - no artificial enhancements, cybernetic or otherwise - and they did everything - _everything -_ while he watched. He let them think what they liked - that he thought they were pretty, that he was lewd, that he was paranoid. He really didn't care what they thought so long as he could see them, and he never - _never_ - let them get behind him.

It went against his grain to let Denise do it now, but there was logic to her protest, and his shoulder _was_ hurting. He didn't figure she could make it any worse. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her shove the rest of her blackberries in her mouth and rub her hands on her skirt. A few dark streaks were left on the pale fabric and Riddick contained his smile. It looked like the "slick" was starting to slack. Torn stockings, combat boots and now this - things were only going to get worse for the girl.

She moved in with a scuffle and a scrape - quiet was _not_ one of her strong suits - and he felt her warmth come up behind his back. "If you can take your top off...," she suggested hesitantly, and when he moved to comply she lent a hand to save his shoulder some movement. A moment later his tank top was in his lap and her hands were light and cool upon his skin.

She started out gently, long strokes and gentle kneading across his back and upper arms that encouraged his shoulders to relax, and he had to admit - to himself - it felt good even if there were twinges as she passed over the strains and pulls buried in his muscles. Slowly she shifted movements to something harder and deeper until he grunted as she hit the sore spot again.

"I'm sorry," she said anxiously, "I don't want it to hurt."

He could read it in her voice. She knew there would be some discomfort involved, she couldn't avoid it, but she was afraid he'd hold it against her... return the favor.

"S'alright," he growled. "Pain and me is old friends. Reminds me I'm alive."

"That's a sad way to be reminded," she replied softly.

Riddick half shrugged. "Yeah? I take what I can get."

Denise said nothing, but went back to work letting up on the pressure and not attacking the injured area quite so hard. He felt her efforts to ease back in deeper increase gradually, but she never let the pain reach comment stage again. He was impressed. This wasn't one of those namby-pamby squeeze the trapezius a few times and call it good. She worked long and carefully, finding the knots and working them out, finding the pain and working to sooth it. When she was done his shoulder was still sore - he knew he would be for awhile; it still had healing to do - but it felt looser.

"Not bad," he shrugged carefully testing the joint's limitations. "You got strong hands." ...for a secretary went unspoken.

She shrugged in return as she settled back cross-legged before the fire. "Like I said, I work out regularly. I do the repetitive stuff if I have to, but it gets boring. I'd rather be doing something that involves my brain as well as my muscles. Free climbing is a favorite if they have the facilities."

Riddick took in that tidbit and glanced over the girl again. _Yeah, that would account for the legs too._

"Only in'a gym?"

She cocked her head, puzzled.

"Ever do the real thing?"

Understanding dawned. "What? Risk my life on a real mountain?" she laughed. "As if what I do for a living doesn't have enough risk involved already? No," she shook her head ruefully. "Actually I'm... I'm afraid of heights."

"And you free climb." _That's a twist._

"It's not like it's really dangerous in a gym," she replied with mild embarrassment. "They'd never let anyone get hurt by falling. Its all THS... you know, Textured-Holographic Simulations. It's more mind over matter. It may _look_ like a long ways down, but it's not more than two or three meters to a cushioned surface at the most, even if they _don't_ have velocity dampers to slow you down... although I'll admit it _can_ be a real workout for body _and_ nerve if they've got a good system. Some of those THS programs can seem pretty real."

Artificial fabrics in your clothes. Artificial flowers in your skin. Even your mountains are artificial. No wonder you're freaked by a real forest. The question is, push comes to shove, can you show some real nerve, but if we're lucky we won't need to find out. In the mean time, you've got some pain of your own we need to deal with before it slows us down.

"Wouldn't know," he concluded. "Don't have that stuff in the joints I hang out in. So what were you wincing at when we were buildin'?"

"I was wincing?" she repeated with ill feigned innocence over her surprise.

He looked at her sternly, and her facade crumbled into equal parts worry and relief. "It's nothing serious," she said hastily. "These boots are just pinching a bit, that's all." Riddick knew a bluff when he heard one. He'd diced with cheaters and learned to beat them at their own game.

"Lemme see," he ordered.

"Really," she protested. "It's not that baaaad...!" Her protest transformed to a startled shriek as he suddenly grabbed one of her legs and tipped her on end so he could pull a foot out of her cross legged tangle.

He grinned at her frantic desperate attempts to simultaneously catch her balance and protect her modesty - neither nearly as effective as she'd have liked - and couldn't help quipping, "Those pants I brought you'd be nice to have about now, huh?" She turned crimson and he ignored her sputtering objection as he unfastened the boot, pulled off Vera's striped sock and neatly split the toe of her stocking with his shiv. He heard her sharp intake of breath as he peeled it back baring her shapely foot and found something significantly more than nothing. Her sole was red except for a large pale translucent fluid filled bubble of skin across the ball of her foot, and another well begun in the curve of her arch near the heel. "Yeah. Uh huh."

He repeated the process on the other foot finding that sock wet and the largest of the anomalies intact, but empty of fluid. He laid the sock on the rocks near the fire pit and propped the boot up near by to heat the sole and dry it out then held both her feet up side by side forcing her to maneuver in favor of balance. There were almost symmetrical patterns on her soles. "You got blisters, and they ain't little ones," he announced unceremoniously. He then set her feet down so they rested propped over his leg and pulled the med-kit out of the duffle.

"You're not angry?" she asked worriedly. "You're not going to leave me here?"

"That what you think? Cause your boots don't fit and you cause me a little work I'm gonna dump your ass?" _That what had her worried? But then I __am__ a mass murdering serial killer even if I ain't the kind she expected. _"Gallo wouldn't be very appreciative if I did that, would he?" Riddick shook his head slightly as he worked, explaining in not so many words he still considered her worth the effort... even if it wasn't Gallo that would probably make it so. He saw the relief in her eyes, but it shifted to wary as he popped the lid of the med-kit. She knew it didn't matter what he did, it was bound to hurt some, and she did well as he pulled out disinfectant and cleaned the raised bubbles of skin. It wasn't until he reached over and held the tip of his blade in the fire that her eyes went wide.

"Oh, no," she squeaked as she tried to scramble backwards, "You're not going to practice more of that mercenary medicine on me! No!"

Riddick clamped his other hand over her ankles and locked them in position, turning his head to look at her full on. As his blade still casually rotated in the flames, he drawled, "One."

The squirming stopped dead. "But..."

"Two."

"Mr. Riddick," she pleaded plaintively. "Please."

Riddick pulled the blade from the flame and looked at it critically, then looked back to her without releasing her feet. "I said you do what I say and I'd get you outta here, but I sure as hell ain't carryin' you, and you ain't gonna make it another klick unless we take care of these tonight."

"There has to be another way," she whispered staring at the knife.

There was, but not without using up more of their resources than they had to. This was simpler and would do the job just as well. "Not in my book." She looked like she was going to faint, but she didn't. After the tip cooled, she gave a whimper but held steady as Riddick carefully punctured each of the blisters, and afterwards she bit her lip against the discomfort as he emptied each blister of its fluid with gentle pressure. That done he released her ankles and reached back in the first aid kit where he began to assemble the Dar-Gen before her startled eyes.

"But the cell's damaged," she protested weakly. "You're wasting the charge."

"Won't take much," he answered without looking at her. "And you won't be walkin' very far without it." She said nothing more, not that it would have made a difference, as he proceeded to pick up one foot then the other and apply the device to each wound in turn. He felt her jerk each time he started and her leg trembled as she struggled to keep it still. He didn't know if it was because the sharp tingle of the Dar-Gen tickled or hurt - not that it really mattered. He was _not_ going to carry her.

When he was finished, he divided a large wound seal into pieces and carefully cut custom holes in each section before adhering them over the blister sites so that the location would be protected from direct pressure. Technically the injuries were healed and there was no need, but he knew the newly reconstituted skin would stay tender for a few hours at least, and this would keep it from rubbing. He carefully smoothed his thumb over the surface of the seals making sure there were no wrinkles that would irritate later if she left it on and finally tossed Vera's socks in her lap. "We'll see what we can do about the boots in the morning. In the mean time, wear 'em. If you got to go somewhere in the middle of the night, you ain't going to want to do it barefoot."

She nodded and quickly did what she was told. When she was done she looked up and watched him a moment.

"What now?" he growled.

She shook her head. "Nothing, I just wanted to say thanks... again."

"Yeah." He shrugged it off.

"You've got good hands too."

At that he smirked. "You have no idea."

Several hours later, Riddick sat staring at the little fire outside the lean-to. Normally he would let it die down to embers and bank it for the night, but in caution mode he preferred to have enough flame to catch things quickly. That meant cat naps, and waking up every so often to add wood to the fire when it got low, but that was nothing new to him. It didn't really matter if you were the hunter or the hunted, sleep - deep sleep - was a luxury you learned to go without for long durations.

Coulter, on the other hand, had crashed hard. He had wondered how she would take to her first night in the woods without the comforts she was accustomed to. It turned out to be a non-issue, and he understood why. You paid a price when you went in cryo. Not a big one - nothing compared to the price you'd pay if you didn't - but the body still came out a little rougher around the edges than it went in. Few hours of taking it easy and some nutrients were the usual remedy. Situations like this didn't offer that. The girl had been put to work with little opportunity to rest and no food. Hadn't been easy work either. Constant pain also wore you out. He knew that better than most, and walking on those blisters hadn't been comfortable. And then there was the basic stress of waking up to find yourself crashed and your new traveling companion was a mass murdering serial killer... not knowing from one minute to the next if he was going to get tired of you and kill you or maybe not. Some people might call it a bad day, but she was coping. He might not say it out loud, but he'd give credit where credit was due. She was tougher than she looked, although that in itself wasn't really saying a great deal.

He hadn't been surprised when the day finally took its toll on the girl. Within an hour of being fed, watered and doctored Denise's eyelids were drooping, even if she was too nervous to actually lie down. Instead she leaned back against the moss and the trunk trying to watch the woods beyond the insect barrier clinging to her bag to her as if it were some kind of talisman, but she couldn't watch for long. It wouldn't take but a few minutes before she'd start to drift off, then some noise in the woods would make her jump... and when she came down she was a bit closer to him. Before long she was huddled against him - the lesser of two evils he supposed - and he was forced to put his arm around her just to keep it from being pinned. Once he did that she was _out -_ snuggled up against him, hugging her bag like a teddy bear.

Having her so close was as novel as it was irritating. It had literally been years since he'd been alone with a woman who hadn't been paid to keep his company, and here was this frail he intended to trade for cash nestled under his arm like a lover... and smelling like she'd gone swimming in a perfume vat. If the whole thing wasn't ironic he didn't know what was.

He had to admit the girl had some redeeming qualities. He tended to like his figures a little fuller, but what she had wasn't bad, and he couldn't remember seeing eyes quite like hers before - the dichotomy of colors, blues and golds. Those could hold his interest for a while the way they shifted and changed with her emotions - made a man wonder what else he could make them do - but that wasn't enough to attract him. He wanted more than shape and form in his woman. He wanted confidence and competence; he wanted someone who didn't cower when he glowered. Some one with enough guts to stand up and tell him to his face something he might not want to hear, and this little frail didn't have that.

It was almost a shame.

* * *

**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**NOTES**

**Firstly**, a few people - in reviews and out - have commented on Riddick's ability to see color at this point. Turn About take place **BEFORE** he got his eyes shined but I only mentioned it in the A/N Timeline because I couldn't figure out how to address it within the story itself. I just hadn't thought about it hard enough because JacklynK got my brain churning again and I went back and addressed the problem. The solution - if you care to check it out - is near the beginning of the prologue. See if it helps.

**Secondly**, I'm trying to keep my stories within canon as best I'm able. Another Riddick writer pointed me to some official 'history' on the web that I had missed which confirms the order of prisons Riddick stayed in up to Ursa Luna where his eyes were surgically shined (see Eyeshine Origin 1 in The History of Riddick: a writers guideline). I will be changing History of Riddick to reflect that new information, and as a result the prison in this story has to change as well. Jenner _wasn't_ trying to take Riddick to Hubble Bay when they crashed as I originally wrote; he was actually taking his 'payday' to **Tangiers Penal Colony**. Previous chapters of the story have been altered and future mentions will reference Tangiers. Sorry for any confusion.

On to the stuff that really matters...

**THANKS:**

**Hope and love** - Thanks! Just 2 chaps left (if things stay the way they are). Hope you'll stick around :o)

**Padme4000 -** Thanks for the praise and for being so faithful! Hope Denise is still holding her own with you - LOL - and I really appreciate the review! Hold on a little(?) longer :oD.

**NotAfraidToLive** - I am thrilled you're loving Turn About. I sincerely apologize for keeping you waiting for SO long. 4 stories, 3 kids and a busy life are not conducive to speedy writing evidently, but I will keep plugging away. The end of Turn About IS in sight! Thanks for the review!

**Shaden** - I have watched Star Trek, and now that you mention it I do remember a 'dermal regenerator.' Well, great minds must think alike - LOL. It wasn't my intent to copy, but it may have been where the idea came from - the name just seemed logical. Thank you also for the description compliments. I give God the credit not only for giving my word the ability to convey an image you could 'see,' but for creating the incredible scenes my words sought to convey. If you go to my profile I have links to the picture I was looking at while I was writing. You will see my words do not do them justice. Temperate rainforests are simply incredible! Thanks for the perfume note to :-)  
As to Riddick's history... You got me thinking - You're right. I actually had a bit of history written in another story that just didn't seem to 'fit'. This would be the perfect home for it :o). If it works out, you'll see it in a future chapter - consider that chapter dedicated to yourself for such a grand idea - :oD. I also hope you've had many great days since yout last review of Turn About. I'll continue to keep you in my prayers, and I thank you for including me in yours!

**Pahoehoe** - Sorry it took so long to update. Thank you for the characterization comments - you got a little more this time around. Hope it is still enjoyable. Scavenging the wreck? Yeah, but poor Riddick - it would have been so much easier if he hadn't had to pack for two - LOL. Thanks too for your comments on Denise and her perfume too. I'm not sure _I'm_ ready for injectable perfume but I have to say, it didn't sound completely SciFi when I thought of it. I'm so glad you enjoyed the chap 7, and I appreciate your letting me know - high praise :-D. Hope you enjoyed this one as well :o)

**ms metaphor -** Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying Denise because I'm having fun writing her. She's kind of taken on a life of her own I never expected when I started the story - LOL. And I really appreciate the comments regarding Riddick. Sometimes I know just how (I think) he'd react, and other times I have to put some thought into it, especially with this story :o). Good to know I'm not straying too far. Hope you also found this one worth waiting for - Chap 8 is not the end of the story, but I can see it from here :oD.

**The Mercenary - **Thank you! "Well written" and "good characterization" have to be among the two best compliments a fanficer can receive :o). Hope you can stick with me a little longer ;o).

**Merrymow - **How 'bout now - LOL - Sorry to keep you waiting so long. Only a couple chapters left, but I can't believe how long it's taking. Hope this was worth it :oD

**Starnyex & JacklynK** - Thanks for your comments and encouragement on the side.

**NOTES:**

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**MY CONTINUING PROMISE:**  
As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.  
The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("only" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between 4 stories, 3 kids, (2 six and under), 1 husband and the life that contains them all and more, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.

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	9. Chapter 9: Surprises

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**CHAPTER 9**

**Surprises**

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Riddick marked the night early on by a trio of dark mammals with mottled fur that decided to pay the camp a few nocturnal visits. The creatures made their presence known not too long after the camp went quiet. Their faint chitters and growls stirring the convict from his doze and he watched through the thin mesh as they cautiously came in three abreast from the darkness. Each followed the same entrance routine at a different interval, taking its turn standing high sniffing and peering then dropping down with a chitter to take three steps as another went up. It gave them a strong resemblance to a set of animated children's toys. Riddick kept his peace and let them come. Once in the light they all three stood up and looked around, then on some silent 'all clear' they split up. Their bodies were broad and thick with wide heads. Large rounded ears swiveled in every direction as their bright eyes explored the camp, fire not withstanding, and they picked up every loose object with nimble paws to examine it closely with eyes and noses... all the while taking turns standing on hind legs every once in a while to peer into the darkness and chuff warily.

Occasionally an animal would try sharp white canines on something he or Coulter had handled as if their touch might have miraculously transformed it into food, but there was nothing that held their interest for long. _Meat teeth,_ Riddick noted, _but the way they're searching, more likely omnivorous. _ That thought was confirmed when one explored the remains of the berry bush and slinked out of the thorny mess with a moderately red berry in its paw. It sat on it's haunches as it turned the berry over in its 'hands' examining it from every angle but then, after a single nibble, it shuddered much as Denise had done and discarded the fruit with disdain. It was examined twice more in turn, but none of the animals was inclined to eat it. _Don't like 'em sour_, Riddick chuckled silently, _no accountin' for taste. _ Surprisingly the creatures didn't seem the least bit interested in exploring the lean-to. _Maybe you don't like flowers either_, Riddick thought dryly, _that__ we got in common._

Riddick had made sure there was nothing about the camp that encouraged visitors so by the time the little mob returned the third time he knew it was mere curiosity that drew them. That was enough for him. He might not like the girl's perfume, but he was going to use it to his advantage. A creature would have to have some pretty precise olfactory skills to sort the two of them out of the floral mess the frail exuded - not impossible, but he was hoping more than likely improbable - so he wasn't moving around and advertising anything living any more than he had to, and he didn't like that there was something else doing it for him. Motion in the camp was just as likely to draw the attention of something hunting as scents were. The third time the beasts came back he stirred and growled as he pushed the curtain aside and chucked a piece of wood on the fire causing a brief explosion of sparks to spin up in the air.

That was more than enough for their furry visitors who high tailed it out of the camp with a single unanimous squall. They didn't come back.

The other thing that shifted early on in the night was the girl's position. She started out under his arm, but after his first bit of jostling as he renewed the flames she found his lap a better pillow. By the time he 'attacked' the camp 'raiders' he'd managed to work her off that so he had some freedom of movement and could lay down himself... so that instead of pinning him down in one place she was just snuggled up beside him, but there were two things that didn't change. The first, she didn't once let go of her bag, and the second, no matter how often he moved, as soon as he settled she cuddled back up against him, her warm back pressed against his thigh, his shoulder, his back... whatever part of his body was accessible, without even waking to do it. It felt strange, but he realized quick he either had to deal with it or accept it or she'd be working him right out of the lean-to.

After a moment's thought he concluded dealing with it _required_ accepting it. He doubted she'd be sleeping without it - no amount of threats could change that - nor did he want to know what she'd turn into if she _didn't_ get her beauty sleep. The whole idea was to get her and her little bag out _alive_. It was an interesting realization, however. He would have never imagined _his_ presence could comfort_ anyone_, especially someone who knew who he was. Usually it was the other way around, but then she wasn't actually conscious of her actions at the moment. Despite the floral stench that accompanied her, however, there was one aspect to the night that wasn't completely unpleasant. At least she was keeping parts of him warm.

Early morning brought with it a chill and a mist that enveloped their little lean-to and collected on the lining spread over the openings. The barrier actually did a decent job of keeping the mist out of their temporary abode. The minute particles of water caught on the thin fibers and grew until the mesh looked as if it were sprinkled with thousands of little crystals spheres. Each sphere flickered with the firelight behind it causing the 'door way' to sparkle like a net of Sardian diamonds. When the drops grew too heavy to resist gravity they would race down the surface clearing a path, but a trail of tiny pieces left behind started the process all over again and Riddick made a note. If they didn't have a ready water source, the mesh would work nicely to collect moisture once the fog came up. They'd just have to be a little more particular about how they set things up the night before.

Unfortunately, however, while the mesh kept the mist out, it didn't stop the moisture present in the wood and moss inside with them from creating a bit of a damp chill. It wasn't bad. The mesh served to keep their body heat in as well, but it had dropped enough that the girl had curled up in a ball against his thigh like some oddly colored hunting hound. _Yeah_, he thought with some amusement, _but the most serious hunting this species probably does is sales at the fashion store_. He had considered pulling out one of the thermal emergency blankets in the duffle, but the things were a mess to fold up again and he figured morning was too close to worry about it now. Maybe next camp if he thought they really needed them.

After a time the sky began to lighten with the coming dawn, and the result below was to reveal another face of forest, this one shapeless shades of pale and shadow in washed out hues of sage and slate. The deep fog that wrapped them limited their vision to meters, reducing all but the nearest things to vague shapes, and things further to complete invisibility. They weren't going to be traveling in this vapor, but they could be ready when it burned off. He stretched, then nudged his companion. "Time to get up."

She mumbled unintelligibly, clutching her bag tighter, then actually rolled away from him.

"Suit yerself. Camp's coming down," he offered congenially then crawled out of the lean-to and promptly pulled the lattice away from the trunk. Between the overlap of the mesh and the springy foliage attached to the framework, there was an abundance of cold water droplets just waiting for the excuse to complete their earthward journey. His sharp motion broke these droplets, large and small, from their moorings and sent the uppermost of them springing into the air to fall back within the space so recently sheltered.

The frail's shriek at her sudden cold shower caused Riddick to duck his head, the piercing high note ringing in his ears, but by the time she had righted herself to glare at him, he had returned to his stoic stance and he met her gaze placidly. "I said it's time to get up," he repeated pleasantly, then had the gall to grin. He really couldn't help it. If her hair had been mussed before, sleeping on the damp moss had really done it in. Beyond a simple disheveled look, one side now hung flat, while the other had a kink that sprayed it out in several new directions. And those eyes... He had a fleeting thought of a phrase he'd heard once - something about if looks could kill. The girl's brain was churning hard, and her mouth worked too, but the connection between the two seemed to be overloading so he wasn't privy to the thoughts burning up her wires. To that end he figured he could make a few guesses, but that wasn't on the morning's agenda. "Build up the fire a bit," he ordered just as pleasantly but he added an edge to it that stopped her mouth from moving, "and when you're done with that, start takin' the frame apart. We'll save the wire. I'm goin' to take a walk."

That stopped her brain. "You're leaving me here?" She whipped her head around to take in the thick pale mist that surrounded them as if it were a hostile force, and to her it probably was. It hid everything, and there was an utter silence that hung over the early morning forest that seemed wholly unnatural. When they did hear a sound, a distant crack of wood, the fog just baffled the direction and made it sound even more ominous. She spun around in an impossible search for the source then cringed back against the trunk.

"You got the fire... and plenty of sticks," he motioned to what was left of the wood pile and the frame. "You ain't completely helpless, but don't worry... you scream, I'll hear you." He lifted one hand as if he were cleaning out his ear with his finger. "Count on that," he commented ruefully and with that he strode off into the grayness leaving her to deal with it. Rude way to wake up. She'd learn to listen to him even in her sleep.

The fog engulfed him, and as the dew dripped grass and plants were revealed in front of him, the camp and her incessant flowers were swallowed up behind him. The bubble on the girl's perfume had been condensed to something resembling personal by the dense air, but it had been replaced with the rich scent of damp dark earth. It was a natural smell, a wild smell, but it was nearly as pervasive and hindering as the perfume. It pushed things close and held scents down so you had to be right on top of them, and Riddick didn't like that any better.

On top of that his range of vision had been cut from five to maybe fifteen meters at most depending on the drift of the fog. His direction sense was near perfect once he got his bearings, but even he wasn't fool enough to try hiking in this soup without an actual compass. The truth was he had one all oriented and adjusted to this planet's idiosyncrasies - he'd made sure of that before they left the ship - but when stepping out on a new path he'd rather see where he was going and what he was traveling through if he had a choice. The limited vision, at least, was a temporary condition.

The clearing and its immediate surroundings, however, were known territory and even revealed a few meters at a time it was enough for him to see to his needs then find his way around. It was merely a matter of using more senses that just the eyes. He let those senses reach out and tune into the feel of the waking woods as he eased through a couple slow kata routines getting the night's kinks out of his muscles. As he did his shoulder reminded him it still had some healing to do. He didn't like limitations, but he wasn't fool enough to ignore them either. Best take it easy on the arm and give it some down time if he could.

When he was finished he reversed his course of the previous day following the edge of the clearing. He couldn't _see_ the foliage towering above; it was only the contrast of shade against pale that delineated the canopy from open sky above the clearing, but he could _feel_ the great forest all around him and caught an occasional splatter of cold as drops of water gathered by the leaves overhead dropped their collection down to their roots. In the course of one orbital year an average of three to four meters of water would fall on these roots and that had a great deal to do with how well everything grew. It was an environment of abundance, and that made it very appealing.

As he neared the end of his circuit he found his steps slowing. The diffused light permitted to penetrate from above and the deep silence that hung over the woods were positively otherworldly. It filled the forest with a blissful stillness totally unlike the quiet peace of the night before and Riddick didn't want to give it up. When his steps should have shifted to take him back to camp, they turned and went the other way. It was contrary to conventional wisdom to leave a known path in this fog, stupidity really, but when he stood still Riddick could hear the faint murmur of the stream at the furthest edge of his hearing, and he knew as long as he could find the stream he could find his way to the camp.

He didn't go overly far into the forest, not really, but as he walked there was not a sound. Not a bird called. Not a creature cried. Not an insect hummed. There was no sound beyond the soft brush of ferns against his pants, and after Riddick stepped up and settled himself on a small rock outcrop protruding from the ground even that sound ceased. Silence reigned as a palpable force... an ancient, primal force. The fog shifted as it crept through the trees changing and yet unchanging as if it were something beyond natural. There were moments when he couldn't see three meters ahead of him, then a path would open and he would see the ghostly shapes of great ferns bowing over the earth... he could make out the long moss covered vines reduced to snake-like shapes twining between the branches... he'd see the dark trees push upwards until they were lost in the pale mists while along the ground wisps of vapor crept smoke-like over the earth, all without a sound, before fading into nothingness or disappearing beneath a new wave of fog.

The quiet, the peace, the simplicity... It was as if he had stepped back in time to a moment before civilization existed. He couldn't explain the effect. It was simply primeval. He remembered learning about great beasts called dinosaurs that had once roamed Earth Prime. There had been fossils found in the 20th and 21st century that actually yielded salvageable DNA, and that was carte blanc for later geneticists to play with them. Riddick had never seen one in the flesh but he'd read about them. At least one planet had decided to try and recreate a whole collection of pure gened beasts, or at least as pure as they could manage, for some kind of amusement park. They got the idea from some ancient pre-holo vid that someone had found in a 20th century classics collection, but if it hadn't been the vid, someone else would have thought of it. It was man's nature to tinker with things best left alone. The park had been big news for awhile and Riddick could almost imagine he was there now... that at any moment the fog would part to reveal some massive towering beast with horns, or claws or teeth just down the way between the trees.

Just the thought of it made his heart pick up. It made him yearn to step into that time... to be able to leave the running, and the dodging and the people killing behind. The mist created the illusion that he could do that here... that he could vanish into that era as easily as he could step through the trees and lose himself in the grayness. Despite the illogic of it, the temptation to get up and start walking... to disappear into the fog and leave Denise behind - to leave _everything_ behind - was strong.

If he did that. the girl'd be left to find her own way. Be wiser to ghost her, but if he started walking he wasn't coming back. She _might_ make it out to tell the authorities about him, but by his way of figuring the odds of that were slim to nil. If she actually _did_ manage to survive she deserved anything she could get out of it, and by then he'd be so deep in they'd have a hard time prying him out. He could afford to let her have a chance.

Almost he started walking... so almost that his muscles actually tensed to move... then he heard a sound.

In the distance, from the direction of the stream, he heard a rough cough, and a low rough purr, the guttural sound of a predator pulling air over the back of its throat to _taste_ the scent, and with it his neck hairs lifted as the skin on the back of his neck tingled. There was another hunter out there, and it was tracking something. Them?

The idyllic thoughts of vanishing into the wilderness were lost in the immediacy of the threat. Riddick silently stepped off the rock and raised his head to check scents and test the breeze. He didn't smell anything. Damp earth was close all around him hindering, and maybe the angle was just wrong, but what little air movement there was, was in his favor for hunting. He took a lower stance, drew his knife and went into stealth mode.

One would have never guessed a man his size could move quite so quietly, but he was slow and deliberate, the ground was soft and cushioned, and plants would make no noise if the one moving amongst them knew how to do it. His cautious steps carried him toward the stream, his senses straining against the fog to see, to hear, to _feel_ the creature ahead of him. He didn't know what it was. Fog treated sounds deceptively and wild things could pull their own trickerations. This kind of ecosystem often had tiny animals like frogs that could make a prodigious _BIG_ noise, but what he'd heard wasn't a frog or anything like it. That much he knew. He knew a predator when he heard one... he recognized one of his own.

He crept through the trees slipping over the ground like a shadow, but as his neck hairs started to settle he knew what ever it was had moved on. That fact didn't settle his mind any, though. He was pretty sure what ever it was had some size to it, and he had an ugly feeling that he might just know what it was. As he approached the stream, its tranquil motion contrasting his tension, he knelt searching the soft earth along its edge as he worked his way back to camp. He had heard the creature in this direction, and if he were lucky it might have stopped to get a drink...might have left a calling card to let him know just what they were dealing with.

When he found what he was looking for, it did nothing to ease his mind. If anything it only served to amp his edge. The stream was starting to look familiar when he found a deep impression pressed into the mud and he was hit by a familiar scent, this one stronger and fresher than any he'd caught before, discernable by its sheer proximity. Six toes arranged around a heart shaped central pad nearly as big as his palm, none of them showing sign of claws. _Soft pad, retractable claws... no question. Cat... and a big one._

And he hadn't gone four steps more before he saw the cat's weren't the only tracks marking up the mud. Traveling the same direction as the animal's were a pair of boots. His own.

Tracking me? he wondered, What would bring it after me?

It only took a moment's consideration to provide an answer... thought of and confirmed in the next step. In the soft earth was half a boot print, the middle of it ripped through as if the cat had tried to pick up the print with its sharp claws. Riddick knew immediately this was not a random action. He could actually see it in his mind's eye... an anonymous cat shape scraping a clawed foot through the center of the print and lifting it up to smell, breathing rough as it pulled the scent over the back of its throat. Had it been the other boot Riddick would have been left wondering, but it wasn't. This was the boot that had sent the merc blood splattering, that had tracked them across the ship floor, and was even now tracking them through the forest. _Stupid little bit of vindictiveness,_ he chastised himself.

Riddick knew his sense of smell was a cut above most humans, and he also knew there were more than a few animals that put him to shame. If this thing was tracking him by the blood on his boot, then this was one of them. That put a whole new light on things. Did he want to take on a cat this big right now? He shifted his shoulder feeling a familiar dull sear of pain and the limitations revealed by his katas were keenly remembered... keenly felt. No. Not right now. Not unless he knew for a fact he was staying and the impulsive desire that had caught him up had passed. He could have lived with the decision, but staying here was short term freedom. 25,000 might lead to something more lasting, and with that he realized the first of his options had been officially shelved. They were headed for Breken 4.

Once that decision was made his feet found it easy to head back to camp, but his attitude regarding the woods was no longer casual or careless. There was something out there that was interested in them... in him... and cautious was going to have to be the angle from now on. Cautious without freaking out a flighty hysterical prone frail who already thought every little bird twitter and rodent squeak was out to get her. He paused to scrub the sole of his boot with wet sand, then stepped into the stream and let his feet grind into the fine sentiment and gravel on the bottom as he walked. He felt a few points of cold where the seals of his boots had failed letting the stream in, but he didn't stop. If he was lucky he could wash off the blood in the treads of his boot before he attracted anymore attention.

The camp was surprisingly quiet as he approached. He didn't hear Coulter's voice or sense any movement, and for a moment he had a sudden concern that the cat had paid the girl a quiet visit. For that brief moment he wasn't sure exactly how he'd feel if that had happened - certainly pissed. If she was dead he'd never get the disks out of her bag and Gallo'd have no reason to pay him either, but in the next moment his internal self-exploration was abandoned as he saw her standing pressed against the tree trunk clutching a small dark object in both hands. _ What's wrong with __this__ picture._ The object was small... quite small in fact, and nearly hidden by the way she had her hands wrapped around it, but that made it an interest catcher. By the way she held it, all the while scanning the grayness as if expecting an invading force to charge in at any moment, he flagged it a weapon in spite of her. That prompted him to watch it... and her... for a moment. Best be careful just how quickly he entered camp until he found out for certain because the fog really had her rattled. He felt another twinge for leaving her alone in it for so long. If he was wanting to avoid hysterical, he'd need to be a little more careful.

He paused at the edge of the fog becoming a quiet shape in the haze as he looked the rest of the camp over. This camp was significantly different from the one he left. The secretary had struck again. The fire was three times bigger than it needed to be and hot enough to burn off the fog in their little corner of the forest. Trouble was there was plenty to replace it so it didn't make much of a dent beyond clearing the air for a meter or two around the flames. The lean-to frame had been dismantled as he had commanded, and the mesh was folded up under the wire which had been wrapped into a coil nearly as neat as it had started out in and placed on the duffle... and damn if the wood hadn't been arranged according to size. He'd definitely left her with too much time on her hands. But far more interesting, however, were the boots and yellow striped socks discarded by the fire pit and the little collection of things sitting on a slightly leaner purse next to the girl as she stood huddled against the tree trunk. These things were new to him, and he let his feet carry him into camp with a heavy tread bracing himself for whatever her reaction would be.

He wasn't three steps in when she spotted him. "Mr. Riddick!" she cried, and she threw the object she was holding down on to the purse as he rushed him in newly booted feet and wrapped her arms around him. His brief glimpse of the thing she'd been holding confirmed its status as 'weapon' even as it ran counter to what he knew of her, but he lost sight of it as it slid behind a lump in the purse and the frail demanded his attention. He held his arms up to keep them from getting pinned as she all but sobbed against his chest. "You were gone for such a long time. I thought you'd gotten lost in the fog."

Riddick snorted. "Not 'less I want to," he growled, trying to figure out what to do with the girl clinging to him. "Took the long way round." There was something to be said for a warm female body pressed up against his, but that wasn't on the morning agenda either so he finally reached down and began to pry her loose.

She took the hint and pulled herself away with a mumbled apology, then quietly added, "I'm glad you're back." Four little words, but Riddick didn't miss them. They weren't the sort of words he was used to hearing.

The girl fell back against the trunk again and sank down to the ground in evident relief, but when she hit the moss she paused and stared at his boots for a long second. Riddick glanced to see what had caught her attention. His pants were splotched and splattered in graduating shades of dampness down his legs, but what would one expect after walking through plants and ferns dripping with fog. The only thing not in keeping with that was a faint sudden shift to solid wet where he'd been wading in the stream. Her brows knit briefly then she looked in the direction he'd come from. She watched the fog for a long second and he had a feeling she was bothered, but what ever her concern it was evidently dismissed in favor of more important things as she turned back with a shrug and reached for one of the items on her purse... small palm size box with a rounded end.

With the push of a button the little box unfolded in her hand and numerous glowing ball tipped spikes emerged from one end. When the thing bleeped faintly she began pulling it through her hair. Within a few strokes the kinks on the side began to ease, and after a quick once over she held the device up and pushed another button. Riddick heard a series of faint tones during which the girl quickly turned her head to the far side, then when it bleeped again she plastered a fake smile on her face and rotated it a full 180 degrees until she was looking back into the trees. The brush device beeped again and the smile disappeared as she stared at the fog shrouded trunks. She shivered and quickly turned to look at the small hologram of her head projected in front of the gadget. Whatever she thought was in the fog didn't hold a flare stick to what she saw in that little hologram. She gasped then looked up at him with sharp accusation, "Why didn't you tell me my hair looked that bad?"

Yep, that's my baffle headed payday. Hoofin' it through a designated wilderness and she's worried about being presentable. He rolled his eyes. "Me tell a woman she's got bed head before she's had her morning jump juice? I ain't that stupid."

She deciphered his slang in a heart beat and latched on to it, "We've got coffee?"

Riddick moved off to the side of the fire where his pants could dry off but he wouldn't roast, and as he did his eyes skimmed over the girl's new belongings. On her feet were good white socks with a soft blue band around the top, and over them a well broken in pair of hiking boots. They weren't the best a person could buy, but he'd worn enough boots to know good ones when he saw them - these were functional not trendy. Their presence alone was interesting, but on top of the purse were a few more items... a water bottle in a hip holder, two sports energy bars and... a little semi-automatic mousegun complete with a self concealing auto-anchor holster. All of a sudden the dark little handful she'd been clutching while she waited for him was confirmed. _Now,__that's the __last__ thing I'd have expected. _

Wary was standard operating procedure in Riddick's book, and the presence of a gun, particularly a gun in the possession of someone who said they hated guns, kicked his up a notch. The cat was a new factor prompting him to step up the schedule, but they weren't going anywhere until he had some answers... till he decided if he was taking company or going solo... but for now the girl seemed content to leave the little firearm where it lay as if his arrival had eliminated its need. He glanced at the fog. Still time enough for answers; no need to go the subject head on... yet.

He remained hyperaware of the girl and her gun, even as his actions appeared casual. After he settled himself he pulled the duffle over to his position and fished out breakfast. "Nope. We got ration bars," and he tossed one in front of her before beginning to pack the mesh and wire.

"Oh," she sagged a little in disappointment, then closed her brush and set it down on her purse without even glancing at the gun.

She picked up the bar, looking at it dubiously, and Riddick smiled to himself recalling her last encounter with the emergency provisions, but he was more than happy to help take her mind off it. "So now you're a magician?" he asked.

"What?" she looked up from the bar where she was studying it carefully... looking for the best way to open it _without_ activating the heating unit.

"Secretary, courier... magician," he gestured toward her new belongings, "I didn't pack them boots. They come outta thin air?" He knew better. It was more than obvious to both of them that he knew they came out of her bag, but he knew the question would get him what he wanted. Ask this girl a question and you got _way_ more'n you ever needed... usually.

"Oh, those," she suddenly looked perplexed, "The crash must have addled my brain. I have a membership to the Cedrin Adonis Galactic Gym and there are facilities on Breken 4. They just got a new THS hikes and climbs collection - something from Earth Prime called Yellowstone Back Country North America. I had planned to try one of the nature trails after dinner... something relaxing before I went back to the hotel... so I packed my boots and a change of clothes, but I ... I forgot!" She shook her head. "It wasn't till I started building up the fire this morning and those other boots started pinching again that I thought about them. I just knew I was going to get blisters all over again and I wished I had my own boots. _That's_ when I suddenly remembered _I_ _did_." She was obviously bothered... practically emoting dread and distress. "I don't know what's wrong with me... why I didn't remember until now. Did I have a concussion or something?"

She looked to Riddick as if he might have the answer and he shrugged letting his good shoulder make most the motion. "Your tube malfunction might have somethin' to do with it." _Then again, maybe you're just naturally ditzy. Time may tell... if we got it. _

"Do you think?" she asked hopefully, a reasonable explanation easing her concern. "It would be temporary then... right?"

Riddick shrugged again, carefully, and her eyes narrowed sympathetically.

"Your shoulder still hurts, doesn't it?"

"It's gonna."

There was a pause then, almost reluctantly, she offered, "Do you want me to rub it again?"

The animal in him growled, but Riddick met her eyes. He saw something he couldn't quite place there, but concern was still the main theme. That was good enough for him. There was something out there in the woods. He didn't plan to pick a fight, but it could come down to one anyway. "Might be a good thing," he acknowledged.

He shifted to open up his back, but he angled himself so she'd have to come around to work on him... so that he'd be between her and the gun. Giving his back felt even more prickly with a firearm in the open and he watched covertly as she got up, but she again paid the little gun no mind, nearly dropping her ration bar on top of it.

She settled herself behind him. "Do you want to take your shirt off or should I do just the one shoulder?" she asked quietly. He shifted the one shoulder slightly and a moment later her cool fingers were brushing his skin as she slid the strap of his tank down his arm. "I'll be more careful this time. I'll just try to work out some of the knots so it doesn't feel so stiff."

He grunted his acknowledgement and she began, her cool hands warming quickly as they sought the tight spots. Good to her promise she caused twinges and a few sharp flashes, but nothing serious.

"What kind of clothes you pack?" he asked as she worked.

"Short sleeve shirt... shorts. They're really not much better suited to this place than what I have on, so I decided I might as well keep them clean for when we get to the city."

Made moderate sense. "What else you got in that bag of your's?" Some of its bulk was gone, but Riddick could tell by looking it wasn't empty.

"Odds and ends," he felt her shrug as she kneaded. "Tony's discs, of course. My folio. It's got my travel idents, membership cards, hotel pass, my cred cards, that sort of stuff. I also have a vid-reader and a few vid-book cards, some hard UDC..." she groaned. "Man, you never realize how much that stuff weighs until you have to haul it cross country. I am _never_ throwing my loose credits in the bottom of my purse again!" Then she sighed. "But I don't think I should get rid of it. We may need it when we get to the city."

The way she said it told Riddick she was trying to think ahead, trying to figure out how they were going to get him on a transport off planet... and that she _did_ know some of the rules to working under the scanners. One of those rules was a little cash in hand could sometimes speak louder than a lot on a cred-card... untraceable credit had a value all it's own in the circles they'd be seeking services. The jewelry in his pocket might go to that as well if it was real... he wondered what her attitude would be toward that. At least two of the pieces were hers.

"Oh, and I've got my hygiene and style kit - I hate using that generic stuff they provide in the changing rooms, but I didn't figure there was any need to get that out. I don't think forests come equipped with showers."

At that Riddick smiled, seeing the opportunity to make her twitch, "You'd be surprised what a forest's got," he drawled, "but you have'ta share with the natives. Want me to find you one?"

"No," she said quickly as her hand clenched painfully on his shoulder and she looked sharply into the fog, "No, that's okay. Not a problem. I can wait."

Riddick chuckled ruefully. Maybe that perfume does have a use out here after all.

When she was finished she replaced the strap of his tank, and returned to her spot. She picked up the ration bar - leaving the gun untouched - and resumed her inspection. Riddick picked up his own bar and he caught her watching furtively as he opened it. _Payin' attention now. Good girl. _

When he was done she carefully repeated his actions and sunk her teeth into a solid bar with obvious relief. However it compared to her regular fare, it was a far cry better than goo so she had no complaints.

They ate their bars in silence, and as they did Riddick noticed the fog was slowly thinning. Above... through the mist... he was starting to pick out shades of green and gold as the sun burned off the vapor from the top layers down. On the lower levels that meant more light getting through and although it left things hazy, visibility was increasing.

It was nearly time to put some distance between them and the cat tracks... maybe between them and the cat. The trouble was cats could have big territories... tens of kilometers squared... and this was a _big_ cat. Riddick was half tempted to go check the scratch tree, but it didn't really matter. Either the beast had claimed the territory or not. New king or empty land meant the same for them... no resistance if it wanted to follow them, so the sooner they got moving the sooner he'd be happy, but there was one issue yet to resolve.

"So, why you packin' that little pop gun if you don't like shooting things?" he asked casually after he had twisted his wrapper around a chunk of bark and tossed it into the middle of the girl's little bonfire. His boot knife slipped out of its sheath and he began cleaning his nails in a distracted manner that completely belied the intensity he felt. If bringing up the gun made the frail go hostile, if she tried to threaten him, she'd be pinned by his knife before she could aim.

He saw her eyes lock on his knife for a moment, but she didn't bat an eye at the topic shift. "Tony," she answered shortly around her last bite and followed his example with her own wrapper. "He insisted I learn to use it... then that I carry it," she added distastefully as she picked the little gun up and went through a safety check with movements so meticulous and careful they couldn't even remotely be considered aggressive. She had to look to find the release, but after she did, she popped the clip. She checked that it was fully loaded then slid the clip back in and gingerly pushed until it clicked. The same check would have taken Riddick all of three seconds, but she had definitely done it with more comfort and familiarity than she had afforded the bigger piece.

"You hit anything with it?"

"If I have to." There was something subdued in her tone as she carefully slid the little piece in its holster and put it back down. "I can keep the whole clip on the target if that counts for anything."

It didn't necessarily. It was a short range gun, ten, maybe twelve meters at the most. That gave human size targets a pretty big surface to aim at, but simply "_on_ the target" didn't sound like she'd spent much time working on accuracy and beginner targets didn't move... they didn't try to kill you if you missed.

"I suppose I'm just being stupid," she sighed. "If I had been carrying it the way Tony wanted, maybe Jenner wouldn't have grabbed me so easily."

"Wouldn't have made any difference," Riddick commented. He was not overly impressed with her little mousegun and guessed Jenner would have just laughed at it. It was made to be concealed and while that little model - probably chosen to suit her small hand - might scare off would be attackers who had something to lose, it wouldn't be much good against anything else unless you were a crack shot. "Guns are useless if you ain't willing to use 'em."

Riddick finished his nails, returning his knife to its sheath, and she watched him curiously. "You'd rather use knives, wouldn't you?" she asked out of the blue.

Riddick glanced askance at her. Sometimes he just never quite knew where this frail was coming from next and he considered her question. Was she asking about knives in general, or in his capacity as a mass murdering serial killer? He decided to go the latter route. "They're quick, quiet and personal," he said brusquely. "But I'm not picky. I'll use any odd thing lying around if I can't come up with a shiv. Why?"

She shuddered as he spoke, but at his question she shrugged. "Jenner said you used knives because you like to watch things die... liked to watch them bleed out. He said you enjoyed being the last thing people saw... that it was a power thing."

Riddick was amazed at the girl's blunt naivety. Although he could tell the subject matter made her squirm, it was more as if she were discussing a disturbing vid she'd seen on the evening news rather than quizzing the convicted killer who'd done it. Hadn't she considered how dangerous this line of conversation could be, or was this what passed for casual when you worked for a crime boss? "You believe everything people tell you?" he replied.

"No," she shook her head. "But it's not like I have a lot to go on. It's just... after hanging out with you this little while... it doesn't seem right somehow. I don't think it's a power thing."

Riddick was surprised to be given the benefit of a doubt, and on the heels of that surprise was a flash of anger... a strangely irrational flash of anger. So it wasn't a power thing. Then what? She still thought he _enjoyed_ it? And since when did he give a damn _what_ she thought. "No, it _ain't_ a power thing," he growled. "It's a necessity. Places people want me to live, a shiv's a Do-It-Yourself project and they do the job fast, silent and one-on-one... Hell, even gives some a chance," he chuckled cruelly, purely for her benefit, then added with malice, "but not many, and not much."

She blanched, and Riddick took some satisfaction in that. It wasn't the sort of respect he'd grown up hoping for, but he'd take it where he could get it. At Sigma 3 they'd taught him all there was to know about killing and he'd become damn good at it. There had been a lot a things he'd been good at, but that was what they wanted him to learn, and in the end they'd found out just how good he was. So had more after them. He wasn't born a killer, but it was what they'd made him... it was all he had. If he couldn't earn anyone's respect for being the man he wanted to be... for the one good thing he'd tried to do... he'd take it for being the monster they said he was.

But he didn't want to stay a monster. Deep inside he wanted something else, and this frail... her disks... they were his chance to get that... maybe.

The disks.

It would be nice if he could get his hands on those disks. If he could, the girl and all her flighty ways would be optional. He liked having options, especially ones without perfume.

"We're leaving soon as the fog lifts enough to see decent. Best get your bag packed back up." After their last conversation it would take some guts to tell him no, but indirectly that was exactly what he got. It was an almost tangible reaction... as if the suggestion had run up against a stone wall. He practically _felt_ her cringe, though outwardly she only turned her head and rounded her shoulders a fraction... and she _didn't_ start to pack. _Interesting. Do I see a backbone forming here? _ "D'ja hear me, Coulter?"

"Yes," her shoulders shifted back and she turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide with trepidation, but her body was tense and she looked ready to dodge.

Oh, yeah. Very interesting.

"If you don't mind," she said carefully, "I'd prefer not to open my bag again."

_And just what is this backbone made of? _"What if I _do_ mind?" Riddick asked letting a strong hint of menace edge his tone.

She was set to panic. "Please...," she whispered, "please, don't mind," and her gaze unconsciously flicked down to the little gun, and back to him. Maybe she wasn't quite so naive as he thought, but he knew how she felt about guns. Would she really try to use that one on him if he tried to make her open the bag? He stared at her and read it in her eyes. He'd finally found a line this little frail wouldn't let him cross. Yes, if he tried to force it, she _would_ try to use that gun on him, for all the good it would do her. She was not going to open that bag in his presence... at least not willingly.

_Impasse_. _Do I want to narrow down my options this soon? _Riddick had no doubt he could force her to open the bag, but he could see it would cause a fuss and if he did he could never take her to Gallo. It was all or nothing... and if this little spitfire surprised him again, if her backbone where the disks were concerned turned out stronger than he expected...

Not yet, he decided. So long as she's alive and obeying I got two possibilities. If she lets down her guard and gives me a chance I'll take it, but for now I want her trustin' me... least ways as far as she's inclined to. I'll let Leon deal with getting' the disks out if that's the route I go, he smiled to himself, and good luck to him. "Then put the bars in the duffle," he relented, "but you carry your own brush and bottle."

He thought she was going to melt into the moss, but she pulled herself together. Relief was echoed in every line of her posture, and she smiled gratefully at him before busying herself with her tasks. Riddick ignored the fact that he was almost glad he hadn't had to kill her yet... that he kind of liked that smile aimed in his general direction. It took some guts to tell a killer no, however you did it, and he hadn't thought she had that. Maybe there was _some_ hope for her.

And he was pretty sure that she had no intention of killing him. _How sure?_ he asked himself as he pulled Jenner's .44 and put it through a check before glancing absently in the direction of the scratch tree. The territorial marker was still lost in the haze, but he could see across nearly half the clearing now. He stuck the .44 back in it's holster. _Sure enough, for now_, he concluded_. _To his way of thinking it was better having her mousegun out in the open where he could get his hands on it, and for now it might be wise to have a weapon in another person's hands even if it _was_ a pop gun in _hers_. "And wear your gun. I don't feel like haulin' both."

That stupid little bit of vindictiveness on his part was leaving a trail whether he liked it or not. It was barely possible - if this thing was a pure scent hunter - that the frail's perfume might become an asset. But if the thing went on sight once it was hungry enough to hunt...

The fact that the girl had a weapon she might know how to handle had a good side. Maybe she could distract the thing... if she didn't shoot him in the process.

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**-oOo-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**NOTES:**

If you have been reading with me for any length of time you are probably just as frustrated with my update schedule as I am. It just seems like life gets busier and busier, but I will continue - as Shaden suggested - to just keep plugging away. The good news is the end of Turn About _is_ in sight **¤YEA¤**, the bad news is I am not even going to _try_ to give you a deadline. The thing I have been thinking about lately is how much I _really, really_ appreciated your reviews, and how _long, long, long_ it takes me to get back to you and say thanks since they don't come out until the next update. Talk about delayed appreciation - :o(.

With this in mind I've decided to stop making you wait short eons for me to say thanks. I will continue to thank my reviewers at the end of each update, but will do so in a more en-mass fashion. My personal thanks I will send in a more timely manner. If you take the time to give me a review, I will take the time to send you a reply. It only seems fair and will hopefully allow me to give the longer reviews the appreciation they are due as well, for as I said at the beginning...

**REVIEWS ALWAYS APPRECIATED:**  
(Good ones I enjoy, critical ones I value, and those that include specifics I love)

:0)

Now onto Turn About's last installment of overly belated public thanks...

**THANKS:**

**Shaden** - Massive apologies for the delay in updating. Hopefully you won't have to reread _again_ but it has been a _long_ time. No excuses beyond life in general. Well, if you didn't like the distance they covered in the last chapter, you really aren't happy with me now - LOL - but I'm working toward something, and your chapter is coming up soon(?).  
Yeah, I kind of like how Denise is coming along... not the stereotypical 'bimbo', I believe someone called her - LOL - that she started out. Hopefully she will continue to round out believably. I also know just how far her and Riddick's relationship is going to develop, but I'm not telling you - ;oP - you'll just have to wait and see. Only a few chapters to go :0). Thanks for the kind words and the prayers. You're still in mine too.

**NotAfraidToLive** - You're welcome for the update and sorry for making you wait _again_. I have no intention of dropping _any_ of my stories, but thank goodness I'm not trying to meet any deadlines to earn a paycheck :o), of course if I was maybe I could devote more time to writing - LOL. Oh well. Thank you for the praise. I can't ask for better than LOVED it! Hope this one still holds to the bar.

**Brimseye** - From "haha, loved the perfume" to "don't buy it" in three chapters. Bummer. No offense taken though... I'm just sorry it's not working for you. I agree, whole heartedly, that Riddick would be highly unlikely to put any effort into saving a gal he'd never met before... not for free anyway. That's why the 25,000 credit bounty that he could collect on, but I think there are times Riddick is starting to wonder if that's enough - LOL.  
As for Denise not running off into the jungle, well, she sorta tried, but had some sense knocked into her - rather literally. Think about it from her point a view when she woke up the _second_ time. She realized he _had_ saved her life, he _hadn't_ acted hostile and he _hadn't_ taken advantage of her even though the opportunity was there. Under those circumstances might you not decide to take the chance of possible survival, however risky, over the prospect of certain death? I know I would. Survival is a powerful motivator, but you'll have to decide whether that flies for you or not.  
Thanks for the other compliments though. It's good to know Turn About has _some _redeeming features ;o). And Logan, yeah, he's one of my fave X-men (although I haven't collected for quite awhile). Maybe that _is_ where I picked up 'frail' - :oD - I was wondering. I really appreciated your review. Thanks again.

**Blade for Hire** - Thanks! I am trying very hard to keep him in character, and it's not always easy considering Denise is not the sort of personality he normally interacts with so, for the most part, I'm having to wing it - LOL. Your comments give me hope I'm not straying to far :o). Let me know what you think as this odd couple continues to make their way through the forest :oD.

**Starnyx** - Where do you think you need to apologize for a late review... look how long it took me to update! Sauce for the goose I'd say - LOL. Thanks, for the characterization praise. Who'd have ever guessed I could have so much fun trying to think like an air headed secretary.

**Vinbabe** - Thanks SO much! Such high praise is a real encouragement, and I hope you've enjoyed this update as well. This story has been a challenge because the plot is so 'atypical' and I am thrilled it is keeping your interest. Let me know if it continues to do so. Thanks again.

**Anna's pastime** - Welcome aboard - you know how to make an impression! GRIN Two juicy reviews in the space of two chapters. Talk about making a writer feel special - LOL. I appreciate the "Romancing the Stone" comment, but it has been too long since I've seen it to groan. I do remember the two main characters having disparagingly different personalities... I'll have to try to remember to find it next time I rent movies.  
Thank you for the characterization kudos. A writer can't help but "make the canon character their own" in the course of writing, especially back story because to a great deal our past shapes who we are, so, yes, I did do quite a bit of research before I started and I'm trying hard to keep Riddick believable. As you indicated, he's complicated, so I am pleased you are enjoying my portrayal of him in Turn About.

Speaking of research, you prompted me to go do a little more. I went back and watched a few scenes and pulled out the First Edition script of PB I found and not a "yer" in sight so I've gone back and edited not only Turn About, but my other stories as well. Thanks for the critique. As for the other little mistakes, let me know if I've got anything else I'm doing consistently. I just started with betas last chapter and they are definitely helping me catch some things :o).

Thanks so much of the review. Yours is the kind that falls in my "love to receive" category - Letting me know the specific things you're enjoying, but not afraid to point out specific things you think I'm doing wrong. Thank you for taking the time to do so. You'll never realize just how much it is appreciated!

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**MY CONTINUING PROMISE:**  
As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.  
The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("only" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between 4 stories, 3 kids, (2 six and under), 1 husband and the life that contains them all and more, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.


	10. Chapter 10: Bells…

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 10**

**Bells...**

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**Author's Note:** Turn About is a stand alone tale, but it is part of a larger story arc. This chapter makes a brief reference to** Joshua Jacobson** who was introduced in my story Be Still: Chances, in which Riddick has a chance to get all the bounties on his head dropped. Jacobson is a doctor who makes Riddick's acquaintance and offers him a place to start over.

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There was still a haze hanging in the air when Riddick was ready to move, but the cat had put a whole new angle on things and Riddick was impatient. He intended to put as much distance between them and this camp as they could. The cat would either follow or it wouldn't... although he expected that it would. To its mind blood meant something wounded and wounded was likely disadvantaged, possibly weakened, easy prey... or at least easier. There was always the hope that he'd gotten enough blood off his boot that the cat would lose interest, but if the creature were like most predators Riddick was familiar with, he didn't expect it to give up so easily. Blood wasn't the only scent it could track them by; it was just what caught the thing's attention.

Given more time Riddick knew he could come up with other options for dealing with the cat; pitfalls, traps, the right materials to cover their scent... If he had a preference, he'd hole up a few days till his shoulder healed and take care of it right, but there was no guarantees that they _weren't_ being searched for. He didn't _think_ planetary security would be overly rushed to recover a few dead mercs and their prisoner, but Tangiers' _had_ told Jenner their cargo was earning a reputation. Riddick hadn't survived this long betting his life on assumptions.

The way he saw it both problems had the same solution - move fast, move far. Where the cat was concerned, Riddick had hopes it might shy off if they hit rival territory and that the blood scent would be too faint to catch the new cat's interest. Or, better yet, the cats might become more interested in each other and let the humans slip through while they sorted out who had the bigger claws. Fierce enough fight and neither cat would be a threat till the 'prey' was long gone. But all that meant moving out sooner than later, and that meant limited visibility. It wasn't his preference, but so long as the fog was too thin to provide close up cover and he could avoid walking off cliffs or into ambushes it didn't matter if he could see the distance. Right now he could take his bearings off the compass.

He and the frail finished what was needed on her end, but even so she protested the demise of the fire and expressed a strong disinclination to go anywhere while there was any kind of fog remaining. Riddick hid his irritation and simply started counting. She moved fast enough then. He didn't know if it was the threat implied or the promise she'd made. He didn't care so long as it motivated. He pushed that motivation straight into walking and based on her previous day's performance Riddick set a pace that would cover ground without, he hoped, wiping the little secretary out completely. She had good boots now. He intended to push her envelope.

It wasn't long, however, before he began wondering if he was going to regret his decision... not to push the pace, but to leave her breathin'. Shortly after they hit their stride she began muttering behind him, but surprisingly it wasn't the speed she was complaining about. As her murmurs grew in volume he realized the true culprit was the humidity. It was making her hair go flat, it was making her clothes stick, her legs were wet and it was making her stockings rub... she had a whole assortment. "This is miserable!" she finally exclaimed. "It's not going to be like this all day, is it?"

"I thought you were used to 'thick and muggy'," Riddick growled from ahead of her. He hadn't been enjoying himself either for some of the same reasons, but there wasn't much use in saying anything about it. Conditions had to be endured. Complaining wasn't going to change them. At least he couldn't quite smell her... but then he couldn't quite smell anything beyond wet trees which made her muttering all the more irritating.

"I am," she fumed, "when I'm outside on the streets... but I don't have to live there. I don't have to _work_ there. And it's not like this. It's muggy and humid, but at least I can see all the way down the block. Do you even know where we're going? And everything is so damp and clingy... look what it's done to my hair... I thought it was bad this morning! I don't even want to see it now! This is just impossible."

_Stranded in a rainforest with a murderer in front and a cat behind and she's more worried about her hair_. He didn't know if he should ghost her or shake her, although, to be fair, she didn't know about the cat. "Just be glad we came down in the dry season."

"This is dry?" she shot back, "You're kidding, right?"

"No," he retorted. "In the wet season it rains..." He turned to stare at her. "..._every day_. So shut up. You've got _nothing_ to complain about... _yet_," he added, and he chose a tone that promised if she did, _he'd_ be the source.

She caught her breath, frozen by his gaze, then nodded quickly, "Okay, the weather's fine. No complaints." But he almost got the feeling that some little part of the exchange amused her and that annoyed him.

As the day dried up and the dampness was absorbed into the forest, moods improved. Riddick kept a steady pace, and evidently the cat, if it was following, kept its distance... at least Riddick didn't sense it. It wasn't much to go on, but he trusted it. It was also evident the girl wasn't kidding when she said she worked out and liked hiking programs. True they hadn't hit anything extreme, and the forest's natural ambiance kept her on the edge, but the terrain - so far - was not a struggle now that she was fitted with decent boots. She took it all in stride... as long as she didn't find slugs in her handholds and nothing bolted from under her feet. In fact as they continued, her awareness of the forest occasionally edged past the confines of her paranoia, and a couple times he actually caught her glancing around with something other than fear in her eyes.

It was later when the illumination at ground level began to fail incrementally that Riddick decided it was time to start seriously looking for a camp... a defensible one if such was available. The occasional shaft of light piercing the canopy slant wise only confirmed the lateness of the day. The girl had held up decently. Given a choice he would have rather kept moving and taken his chances, but he doubted the girl's gym hikes had prepared her for what he wanted to do, and he didn't need her advertising 'easy target' later when she got seriously tired... and then there was his shoulder. It was a trade off. If you wanted to be particular about a camp, you had to do your looking while it was light.

In the end it was the girl that found the site, albeit through sheer unprecedented luck. They had pushed on as Riddick slowly loosened the criteria to include sites that could be made _somewhat_ defensible. He wanted something more than a lean-to. There was a glut of lean-to sites in a place like this, but what he really wanted tonight was someplace with something resembling walls... maybe a roof. Something cat proof... but that was a tall order considering.

The general direction of their travels was downward. The civilization they were aiming for was a city built on flatlands stripped of forest just in from the coast - sea level - but the area where they'd landed was much higher. That's what made the whole temperate forest thing work. The heavy wet air from the oceans had to climb hard and fast to make it over the mountains, dropping its load in the process, but this time of the year the weather wasn't going to be a challenge. Nope. He had it easy. All he had to worry about was what was between point A and point B... but with _her_ in tow that was going to be challenge enough.

The land itself between the crash and the town was a smattering of terrains... variations on hilly and steep. Sometimes the topography was relatively easy. The only real obstacles were provided by the forest itself, but there were other areas coming up where the terrain itself would become an obstacle... where the earth was rippled and folded and they'd be forced to deal with steep climbs and valley descents in addition to the vibrant cycle of life around them. He wondered how well the girl's gym programs had prepared her for _that_, but... unfortunately... _that_ wasn't a current issue.

He actually would have preferred the ripples and folds right about now. Sharp changes in elevation could mean shifts, upheavals and erosion... maybe jumbled rocks. Shifted layers of exposed strata could mean caves. If nothing else it could mean downed trees that couldn't lie flat... might mean a space underneath with your back to good earth. It could mean a lot of things, but that wasn't what they had. The land beneath their feet in this section of green profusion was moderate hills with long down slopes. That'd been great for the "landing", but it was crappy for what he needed now. It didn't mean there weren't some prime spots out there, but it did mean they probably weren't going to be obvious, and he was beginning to think he should have started looking sooner.

"Mr. Riddick?" Coulter interrupted his thoughts from behind. "Are we going to be stopping soon?"

Riddick paused to glance back behind him. No edges today and it hadn't been a lazy pace either. On top of that she'd made through and hadn't tripped up once so far. Amazing the difference decent foot gear made. "Why, you tired?"

She hesitated then shook her head and he saw it in her eyes again... that worried look. Even if she was, she wasn't going to admit it. She was so afraid that she was going to become inconvenient... If she only knew just _how_ inconvenient she was.

"I can go further if I have to," she offered cautiously, "but... I _am_ hungry."

That made him stop and think. He'd been focused on fast and far, and she hadn't lagged. Their stops had been few... It was with mild surprise that he suddenly realized he had pushed her envelope straight through lunch. Hit or miss meals were par for the course in his life. His stomach had no set schedule and it knew better than to complain over one missed meal, or rather his brain knew better than to let it register. If he had food available, he'd eat. If he didn't, he didn't. It happened often enough he'd gotten used to tuning out that "missed a meal" level of hunger altogether. This girl, on the other hand, was probably used to three squares a day. She'd probably been hungry awhile. _You keep surprisin' me. You ain't so soft as you look. _

"Yeah, we'll be stopping," he answered. "Just need to find a decent place to camp. Somethin' may be comin' in tonight." The last was completely true, but when he glanced up toward the sky beyond the canopy his words took on a different meaning. "I want something more than a lean-to this time around."

"Oh," she glanced up, "That's not good." Then she dropped her gaze and scanned the forest. "So what are you looking for?" she asked. "Maybe I can help."

_Couldn't hurt._ "Cave, hole, trees leaning against one another... something sturdy with some depth. Hard to say what it'll look like. Use your imagination. Something darker than a shadow might be a clue."

She re-evaluated their surroundings. "Good luck spotting anything in this growth," she grumped. "The perfect place could be 40 meters away and we'd never see it."

"Yeah," Riddick agreed sourly. "Keep your eyes peeled. We keep covering ground we're bound to run across something. Come on." He didn't believe that entirely, but he was hopeful.

She sighed. "You're the boss."

He could tell she'd been hoping they'd take a break... at least long enough to eat... but he didn't want to waste the light. "Damn right," he confirmed. "Sooner we find camp, sooner we can stop," he dug into the duffle bag briefly, "but no reason you can't eat on the way." He tossed her a ration bar. "Think you can figure out how to open it without a demo?"

Her face lit up as she caught the package, too glad to be discomfited by his barb. "I'll manage," she grinned happily shooting one of those smiles in his direction again. "Thanks!"

Riddick grunted as he closed the duffle up again trying to figure out what it was about that word... or if it had something to do with the one who was saying it.

Cover ground they did, eyes roaming the verdant world around them as they went. At every point of elevation with any kind of view Riddick could find they paused to scan even more thoroughly. Searching the forest... actually being forced to _look_ around... seemed to bring a new awareness to Coulter's perspective, and occasionally he would hear her exclaim softly to herself as she was distracted by some detail she hadn't noticed before. He kept track of her and her discoveries just in case they interrupted her feet the way they interrupted her search, but she never fell too far behind.

One discovery was the simple beauty of the afternoon sunlight streaming through the holes in the canopy. The golden shafts sparkled with motes of dust floating in the air and she seemed to find the effect "enchanting." Another was an "incredible" bright blue bird that protested their presence in his territory with a raucous display. That one had stopped her feet until the "incredible" bright blue bird launched itself at her and sent her ducking and dodging after Riddick with her arms over her head.

The last was a huge snail - its whorled shell colored with rich blending bands of ocher, orange, crimson and mahogany - laboriously climbing up a tree trunk just off their path. That one drew an exclamation of discovery quickly followed by one of disgust as she recognized it for the slimy thing it was.

"They're edible, you know," Riddick offered over his shoulder.

"Oh, that's revolting," she retorted. "I'd rather eat melted rations!" and Riddick smiled.

It wasn't long after that she was distracted again. As Riddick scaled a horizontal tree trunk to gain altitude, she had moved the other way focused on a patch of flowers. The foliage was glossy and dark, an emerald three shades toward black, while the flowers were delicate white trumpets edged in a jewel toned crimson. They were pretty, if you liked that sort of thing, but the fact that the girl went motionless three paces from the patch made him stop and look.

He tensed, his hand automatically edging toward Jenner's gun. _She sacred? She see the cat?_ But as he looked the motion of a brilliant little bird smaller than his hand on wings beating faster than he could see caught his attention as it had caught hers. It hovered in front of one of the flowers maneuvering like a high end hover craft making precise diagonal movements as it inserted a long needle like beak deep into the flowers without once setting foot on a solid surface. It was an aerial display of such control that even _he_ was impressed, but it had nothing to do with his search so he finally turned his back on the girl and the bird to resume his scan of the area.

_We need shelter; she's looking at hover birds. Should have made her wait to eat. Bein' hungry might've kept her focused._ He shook his head. Current primary classification: ditz, he concluded. A tough ditz, but still a ditz. At least she's keeping herself occupied instead freaking out over every little sound now.

He made a careful scan of what he could see, but none of it looked promising. _Guess we keep going_, then he looked up at the sunlight slipping in, _but we are going to loose our light here soon. We don't find something here in the next fifteen, twenty minutes we'll have to take what we can rig, walls or not._ That wasn't a happy thought.

He was considering their options if they _couldn't_ find a suitable site when he heard his name.

"Mr. Riddick?" her voice was curious, "What is that?"

_It may be small, but it's a bird. I can tell that even from up here._ He turned to answer, irritation already flavoring his remark, but it died on his lips.

She wasn't looking at the flowers. She was staring off in the distance and sounding perplexed. "Behind those big ferns..." She pointed. "I'd call it a tree, but what a strange shape. And it almost looks like its been _woven_. Makes me think of those lace Corolla Gowns from Signess Phi... you know, those ridiculous floor length get ups that make ladies look like they are wearing a bell around their waist with lots of flowey scarves on top." She glanced back over her shoulder to see if she had his attention. "Why people think Signess is part of the fashion hub of the galaxy is beyond me," she rolled her eyes then turned back around. "I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those bell things, but look at that dark shape at the bottom" she pointed again, "... almost like shoes, well, if there were two of them... but it _is_ darker than a shadow. Is that interesting? Is that anything like what you're looking for?"

Riddick didn't care what was fashionable on Signess Phi or any where else for that matter but the description the girl had given _was_ unusual. There were tall silver ferns between him and what ever she could see, but given a direction and a description, he could make out brief glimpses of a strange woven bark through the leaves. He dropped off the trunk and strode over to where she was standing hearing the tiny hover bird give a startled shriek and zoom away at his approach. Its little wings were beating so fast it even _sounded_ like a miniature hover device.

He bent down placing himself at her eye level, and as he did a thin gap materialized between the silver ferns above and the Kelly green ferns below. The plants grew in such a way that you had to be at just the right angle _and_ just the right height to spot the tree behind their foliage... and Coulter was at both. _Lucky break?_ Her tree did indeed have woven looking bark and an odd shape... wide at the bottom and narrowing toward the middle much like a woman's waist. Simply put it was strange, but there was also something familiar about it.

He sifted through his survival lessons briefly and found the name_ strangler fig_ matched against it. He'd never been to Earth Prime, but because it was the original home of life and the base DNA geneticists used to populate their way through the galaxy, a study of Earth Prime's basic ecosystems and climatic environments was the standard introduction to most survival classes. There was absolutely no way a man could study ALL the variations of life that had been on Earth, let alone those twisted and mutated out of the originals, but if you had an overview of what they started with and where it'd come from you _might_ - and that was a relatively big _might_ in some places - be able to make some guesses about what had been developed for any given planet. Predators of certain types tended to have a certain psychology. Prey animals in certain habitats would tend to have the same habits as their genetic predecessors.

There were never any guarantees, but knowing the puzzle pieces _might_ give a man a few ideas toward figuring out a bigger picture. It could be the only thing you had to go on ifyou were dealing with some genetic screw up that got away to breed and/or a place populated by some God-complexed crew of scientists that had twisted stuff together into things that ought never have existed... things better suited to a science fiction vid than real life. His classes had studied a good many examples from those categories as well. _Hell_, Riddick thought, _I've __killed__ a few of those examples. The Spitfires on Sigma were somebody's attempt at a bio-organic mining machine and look what they made instead. _

The slimy car sized lizards with acid for spit had not only failed to do what they were designed to do, but without a natural enemy to control their population they had taken over the mines. Mining on Sigma 3 now required advance work by mercs to clear the tunnels before a section could be worked. Riddick had more than one scar left over from Spitfire hunting and his whole experience on Sigma 3 had taught him the single most important rule of survival - take nothing for granted... not your partner, not your squad leader, not your boss, not your surroundings and most certainly not the animal you were hunting... or that was hunting you. But there was a lot in this forest that was somewhat familiar... that was surprisingly Earth-like... and this tree was one of them.

It had, in actuality, been two trees. One had been of a tall thick trunked variety and the other was a vine that, if it were of the strangler variety, had started when some bird or animal decided to enjoy a bit of fig take-out from elsewhere in the forest among the high branches. The inedible seed, of course, was left behind and that was where it began. Riddick remembered the strangler vine from his classes because it was unusual. It wasn't a parasite, although it killed its host none the less, and it did it quietly... patiently... unobtrusively - qualities he could appreciate in an effective killer even if it was a plant.

The other thing he respected was stranglers were survivors that pushed through the hard times and finished strong because after the seed sprouted on its host, it lived on the bare minimums - nutrients pulled from dust in the air, water collected from the fog and rain - as it sent thin shoots down reaching for the earth. It might take a season or two depending on its height, but once the shoots were within a few feet of the ground some inexplicable signal told them to divide into a multitude before plunging themselves deep in the soil around the tree's trunk. Once in the rich earth the vines had all the nutrients they needed to expand and grow merging themselves over and around until the tree trunk was all but incased in a network of thick cords and tendrils. But despite the name, the original stranglers _didn't_ choke their host to death. Over a period of years, perhaps even decades, as the vine became a tree in and of itself, it usurped the sunshine, soil and water from its host killing the original tree much more slowly than strangling ever would, but dead was dead. Over the next many more years the first tree rotted out providing the vine with an additional exclusive food source.

At some point in the life of _this_ particular vine a portion of its host's decaying trunk had collapsed and it _had_ constricted to a degree creating the waist effect, but eventually it appeared this pair would follow the course of the original strangler it was derived from - the tree would rot out completely and then all that would remain to mark its existence would be a thick hollow column of twisted vine... _hollow. _And there _was_ a dark triangular shadow among the roots... an opening? _Maybe she's found something._ "More than interesting," he commented then set off toward the tree, "come on."

What Riddick found when they got there was worth the detour. As far as strangler vines and their victims went, this pair was massive... far larger than anything he had ever read about... but with all the genetic tinkering man was capable of you couldn't be too surprised by variations. The exterior of this 'tree' was indeed formed of vines - some of the smallest as thick as his arm - and, better still, the shadow _was_ an opening. The thick layer of shredded bark that mulched the area around the breach for several meters was a clear sign that the opening had been used extensively, but there was no sign it had been used recently.

When Riddick left the girl and her smell outside he quickly figured out why. It was unmistakable. The place reeked of cat - old, stale cat - but cat none the less. _What are the odds that we'd find the old king's castle? Or maybe this is just a summer house. Big as they are they may have quite a range. May keep more than one bed... who knows._

Riddick had to crouch to enter, but once inside he found room to stand. In fact the interior of the den was almost twice his height and around 5 meters wide lined with a thick aromatic bark. That was all that was left of the vine's victim and it was nearly as pungent as the girl's perfume. _No need to fumigate,_ Riddick noted the lack of webs and insect activity. S_eems what's left of the tree does it naturally_. And the source of the bark chips was obviously from the previous occupant's habit of scratching the walls leaving deep vertical furrows like the ones he'd found on the scratch tree.

Up above, where the bark had collapsed allowing the vines to constrict, the strangler's mad weave was visible from the interior. Chinks and holes in the lace permitted streams of light to pierce the dark interior, but Riddick knew that was in limited supply. They needed to push it if they were going to take advantage of what light was left. Tall, walled, limited egress... Riddick look up through the clutter caught in the hole to glimpses of the leaf sheltered canopy above. The clutter would have to go. He wasn't going to take the chance sparks might carry up and catch the whole mess on fire... come down on them blazing. Once cleared, however, it would be more than big enough for a man... or a cat... to come down. Wasn't reason enough to pass it up though. With the heat and smoke of a fire filling the opening there weren't too many animals that would chance it, and he might be able to narrow it down a bit. It didn't take a propulsion engineer to determine they'd be calling it home, at least for the night.

"Looks like you'll be tryin' one of those bell things on for size after all," he teased as he exited.

"What?" she exclaimed, "Stay in there? Are you joking? There has got to be all kinds of bugs in there."

"Why?" Riddick returned scornfully, " 'fraid you'll catch termites?"

Her eyes grew wide as she stared at him aghast. "Will I?"

Riddick stared back, then shook his head. "Not you. They like something with a little straighter grain than you," he growled. "Now sit tight a bit while I clear the chimney, then we're goin' shoppin'. We're gonna need firewood, and we'll throw a door together so you don't feel like you need to climb in my pocket tonight." _ And so we can keep any company that might come calling on the outside._

It really didn't take long to get their camp prepared. The clutter in the 'chimney' was limbs and small branches that had fallen over the years and gotten caught in a tangle. Clearing it actually supplied a good bit of prime air dried firewood so he hacked it up as he worked and dumped it down the hole, all except one long limb. It was really too thick to comfortably chop into firewood with just a knife, but its length was ideal for another use. Maneuvering its ends through two of the holes on either side of the chimney, he roughly bisected the opening. One side was narrow. The other was less so. He could slip through handily enough, but those paw prints had been pretty big. With any luck - if the cat was the climbing sort, and in this eco-system he'd be surprised if it wasn't - between the narrowed opening and a fire he could make it think twice before coming down to visit. Sturdy green material for the door was only a short climb higher. The entire process only served to aggravate his shoulder, and while he'd be damned if he was going to ask - the animal in him protested at even the _thought_ of deliberately wanting that girl behind him again - he found himself hopingCoulter might offer one of her massages later.

Without her 'protector' nearby the frail had reverted and sat watching the woods with wary eyes. She looked for the source of most every sound she didn't associate with him dropping firewood down inside the tree. Her whole posture was tense and when Riddick let the door materials clatter down the _outside_ she jumped... quite literally. She spun to face the noise as if something were making a sudden sneak attack. In her new boots she was nimble and quick but Riddick noted if it _had_ been an attack she would've still been dead. She was facing the "threat" with empty hands and had completely forgotten she was packing a firearm. When she identified the cause of the noise, and then the source, she glared up at him. He smirked then dropped from view through the chimney.

"Mr. Riddick!" she cried as he disappeared. She rushed the hole as she heard him thump down inside, and she nearly met him head on as he emerged. She hit reverse so quickly she tripped and ended up sprawled in the mulch where her glare resumed.

"Skittish," he observed mildly meeting her glare, "Don't forget you got a gun now." Although he had his reservations about reminding her, he'd decided to have her carry it for a reason. She jerked, looking toward the mousegun under her arm as if he'd just said there was a spider climbing her shirt. The tech in the little holster had reinforced and anchored itself securely to her top and then automatically covered the little weapon with a low energy optical field that blended it into the fabric so it could hide in plain sight, but the little piece wasn't completely invisible if you knew what to look for. Riddick knew. She reached up to touch the camouflaged weapon gingerly but he wasn't waiting. "Come on," he ordered and walked off leaving her to scramble to her feet and follow.

Denise eyed the dimming light levels suspiciously and stuck close as they walked. As Riddick found what he needed he loaded her arms before starting on his own, leaving as much off his shoulder as he could. Clearing the 'chimney' had been strain enough. The frail groaned, but she didn't shirk, and the gyrations she went through with each successive piece as she tried to make sure it hadn't come with hitchhikers was rather amusing. She didn't, however, make any protests, nor did she ask any questions. If it was because she was tired, she didn't let it stop her from being useful. When they got back, she helped use the wire to lash together the spiked framework that would serve as their door with a similar lack of queries. Riddick offered the excuse that something lived there in the past and they were just going to make sure nothing else decided to move in while they were sleeping. She seemed to accept that but at least once, as she cast a wary eye on the darkening green work, he caught her glancing back the way they'd come. _She ain't completely oblivious, _he acknowledged, _she's got the feeling somethings up. Just how much wild you got in you, city girl?_

They finished the door in a timely fashion, but even so the sunlight was coming in at an extreme angle by the time they were done. Riddick looked around noting the drastic change. This wasn't a clearing. It was going to go dark fast once the sun dropped low enough and he still had a few things to do. With all the bark on the den floor they needed a variation on the fire pit. Once he was satisfied Denise understood how to adapt it he grabbed the Steribottles in hopeful anticipation and left her to it while he did reconnaissance. He kept an eye on her when the foliage permitted. For all her protest about bugs, she now found the tree much preferable to being outside alone and the parts of her chore that required her to be beyond the walls were done at record speed with many a paranoid glance at the woods.

He counted it lucky when he found a little spring a short distance away. It wasn't much... dried to a trickle with the season, but a little hand engineering modified the flow so he could fill both bottles directly from the source. It was doing things a little backwards... but with these bottles he could get away with it. When he got back the Swish Stick would tell him what sort of purification process he needed, but for now he was just glad to have access to H2O. While the bottles filled he located a suitable latrine. There was question whether Coulter would get to use it.

The darker it got, the more hunted he felt. His neck hairs weren't twitching _yet_, but they were definitely thinking about it. Considering the alternative, however, he decided to take the risk and went back to the tree. The steady glow of a palm light indicated she had lost light inside and he could hear her working hard inside the cavity. "Coulter. Grab what ya need from the duffle and take a break."

"Just a minute. I'm almost done here."

"Now," Riddick ordered. "I ain't makin' two trips tonight. You don't come, you're doin' your private business in the corner with me for company."

There was a sudden scuffling of bark chips followed by the duffle opening and a short time later she emerged from the opening. "A little impatient, aren't we?" she asked snippily.

"Getting dark and I'm hungry." It wasn't that far from truth. He'd skipped lunch too and it was getting into dinner. "We get settled I ain't goin' out again."

The light level was dropping between eye blinks now, each second getting darker and she was suddenly more than happy to hurry along. Riddick didn't offer her the same degree of privacy he had the previous night, but surprisingly she didn't protest. She watched the forest shapes fading into sinister obscurity with undisguised dread, and jumped at _every_ sound. Riddick chaffed under the restrictions she placed on him. If he were alone he'd be in the trees, he'd be picking up the scents, he'd be tuned into the forest, he'd have covered over twice the distance... maybe be out of cat land by now. "It's so close here," she shivered, and he knew exactly what she meant. The circumstances had changed. He was being hunted again. Unlike the clearing, night falling here made every clump of ferns, every tree trunk, every shadow feel like an ambush waiting to happen. She didn't know the half of it, but for once the two of them were using the same book-card, if not reading on nearly the same page.

She finished quickly and they made a short detour to collect the water bottles then beat feet back to the tree. His shoulder ached with a dull pain that told him he'd pushed the healing tissues further than he ought but the camp chores weren't completely done. He wedged the door in place confident that its spiky exterior would dissuade most animals from trying that entrance, but with what he knew, he wasn't feeling safe... yet.

The girl hadn't been far from right when she said she was almost done with the fire pit and that was after she'd cleared the floor and organized all the firewood to one side of the door first so she'd accomplished quite a bit while he was exploring and done a decent job with both. She held the palm light while Riddick finished up tweaking the pit design. When he was finished, he grunted his satisfaction as she started handing him the ingredients for a fire in the order he'd taught her the night before. He had to admit she picked things up quickly. When he was done putting together the layers he sat back and motioned her to finish. She crushed and twisted the Fire Bug the way he'd shown her before placing it in the tinder.

The little fire that sprang up was welcome. She nursed it under Riddick's direction until it was burning cheerfully and for the first time that evening Riddick began to feel like he could relax.

The girl too, seemed to relax, settling in nearly as far from the door as she could get which put her not quite the other side of the fire from him. "I don't know what used to live here," she said as she looked around in open disdain, "but they had certainly never heard of interior design... I mean, really, vertical grooving in a place this tall? What _were_ they thinking?"

_Interior design? She thinks this is a fashion statement? _ He glanced up from testing the water with the Swish Stick to gaze at the cat scratches. Their deep, even, parallel spacing did create an illusion of deliberation. _ Nice to be ignorant, _he thought as he caught a slither of movement up near the chimney, a faint reflection of the fire light on something with a bit of a dull shine to it... scales? ..._up until it kills you. _ "Doubt decor ever crossed their mind. You still hungry?"

"Oh, yes," she replied eagerly. "After the hike today I feel like I could eat two or three... although I guess that probably wouldn't be smart. You probably didn't pack much more than you figured we'd need, you carrying everything and all." Riddick didn't answer, but she didn't even notice as she pouted thoughtfully.

The Swish Stick flashed green and showed an exceptionally low organism count, but Riddick sealed the bottles and activated the sterilizing cycle on both anyway. It only took one bug to take you down, but if sterilize was the only setting they had to use, each unit would have a good hundred cycles in it if Jenner had kept the power supplies up to date. Riddick didn't figure they'd come near using even quarter that many on this trip so there was no sense taking _those_ kind of chances.

"Too bad it's so dark now," the girl sighed. "We could have looked for more black berries. Those you found last night were better than the ones Tony had brought in even if they were a bit sour."

"Bars are made to keep you alive, not fill you up. If we want to keep taking chances we might find a few other things to supplement along the way," Riddick answered as he put the Swish Stick away. He pulled out a couple ration bars and pitched one in the girl's lap before he lifted the water bottle to take a drink and keep a surreptitious eye on the newcomer.

"I trust your judgment," she said carelessly as she pounced on the bar. She was so busy ripping it open with careful haste that she didn't catch Riddick stop, lower his bottle and stare at her.

It wasn't so much her trusting his judgment that was surprising. She was doing that just by following him... by doing what she was told. What was surprising was to hear it consciously acknowledged... to hear it _said_ so matter-of-factly. He finished taking his drink.

"Can I have some water too, please?" she asked after she bit into her first mouthful.

Riddick tossed her the second bottle. "So what other fancy stuff has Gallo let you try?" he asked after he finally opened his own bar.

"Well, lets see... there's the Boravine eggs I told you about. They have an interesting flavor, like they've been cooked in butter and garlic with some spices I can't even begin to describe, but they come right out of the shell that way... and somehow they taste more like butter than real butter does."

"You've had real butter?" Riddick asked.

"A few times," she nodded.

It wasn't that real butter was unavailable. It was just expensive. Life on Earth Prime was tailor made for Earth Prime and man had found out just how particular it could be as they started trying to live other places. Case in point: it turned out that a lot of planets weren't what you'd call dairy friendly. There were subtle differences on a molecular level in the soil... in the atmospheric conditions... in the mineral and gas combinations... that weren't found on Earth Prime. This did things to milk production in its earliest stages and somehow altered flavor. It affected the milk and anything made with it in unexpected ways, rarely for the good. The planets that could offer naturally palatable dairy products turned out to be few and far between and so pulled a premium price for their products. There were a few others that had managed to genetically adapt their livestock and feed plants to produce something edible despite conditions, but they had spent a lot of time and money doing so. Genetic adaptation was always a complex and touchy process, but the demand for real dairy was such that planets that had been successful were able to charge prices nearly as high as natural.

The result was real dairy... including milk made butter... was only for the rich. Margarines and part dairy substitutes were a white collar's perk. The rest of the galaxy lived with varying synthesized protein products that pretended to be dairy. And then there was Butter Stuff... at least that was the most common and the most family friendly pseudonym. It was an entirely artificially flavored synthetic substance that could be added to whatever oil was available to create a supposedly butter tasting substance for the common man. Depending on where you lived and how much you paid it might even have organic oil as its base. But she'd had _real_ butter. _Must be nice._

"Let's see, there's the Blackberries, of course," she continued. "I've also had Kaladas, a fruit from Styleetus 2 - I've had those more than once, they're good if you like things tart - and something called a Portapa Banana. I don't remember where it was from. I didn't like it very much."

"What kinda meats?"

"Well, bison is really good. Tony says the best comes from some place called Wyoming on Earth Prime and he has a case of steaks brought in every year for his birthday. I've never seen a real bison, but there is a silhouette in the logo on the crates they come in, and they are supposed to be in the new THS Yellowstone Hikes & Climbs collection. I read up on them once - there was a little picture with the article but it wasn't a really good one. I _can_ tell you they are monstrous shaggy beasts with horns and a hump. Can't wait to see one life size on my next hike," she grinned, "but I can tell you first hand they sure taste good when they're grilled. I've also had Deep Reef Blood Crab from Steagra Palto. Oh, and there was the time Tony brought in a Tassaderan Boar for a big old fashion barbecue. That whole affair was interesting from start to finish; the boar was just a complication. Something about stasis affects their meat so it had to be brought in live. Tina and I..."

She stopped suddenly as a fleeting look of pain tightened her features and darkened her eyes. When she continued a moment later her voice had lost some of its animation. "...I was there when they unloaded it. The transportation enclosure looked like it had been through a war... from the inside. Evidently cryo's not completely effective on them either. Next time I saw it though, it was roasting on a spit and that was fine with me. That was not the sort of creature I would want to encounter running loose." She paused, then looked out the doorway as a new suspicion interrupted her brush with melancholy. "You don't think that sort of thing lives here, do you?"

Riddick glanced covertly at their visitor. The scaled creature had wedged itself into a large crack running down the wall and was slowly working its way toward the warmth. The groove was filled with a deep shadow that hid the thing's nature, but Riddick had a good guess. The high point of its back swelled a bit beyond the bark's depth and caught the firelight. A curvy line of soft gleam punctuated with small spikes undulated back and forth terminating in a triangular nose that protruded from the darkness. Riddick caught an occasional faint flicker from the tip of the nose. _Air taster? Definitely looks reptile_. _Something in the snake family is my bet, but what kind? _

"Possible," Riddick answered the girl's question off handedly "but I haven't seen any sign of pigs so far." _Then again, guess it don't matter either way. I ain't sharing my bed with it._

"Oh, good," she looked relieved. "If other boars are anything like the one I saw, I don't want to run into anything like them _anywhere_. That thing had a nasty disposition and some wickedly long tusks."

Riddick wanted to shake his head, but that might've spoiled his plans. The girl was worried about wildlife she hadn't even seen and was completely oblivious to what was directly above her head. He figured it would only be polite to point their guest out to her sooner or later. _But frankly,_ he added silently,_ a boar'd be preferable to what's tailing us. At least a pig wouldn't be huntin' to eat us and I __know__ it'd taste better than these ration bars._

He ate his bar and let the girl finish hers. Then both threw their wrappers in the fire and she quickly added the one she'd stuck in her skirt pocket from her bar earlier that afternoon. The triple play of colors in the flames was particularly intense and she watched as if hypnotized, barely noticing when he slipped his big knife from its sheath. "So," he asked blandly, "ever had snake?"

"Snake?" she repeated distractedly, then her eye brows scrunched as the word really registered and she looked up at him. "No, I don't think I have. Why?"

"Just curious," Riddick smiled. There was a flash of pale and silver in the firelight as his arm extended immediately followed by a solid thunk a short distance above her head. She jerked away, drawing a breath to fuss as she started to look up, then screamed as a tumble of heavy, scaled coils dropped on her from above. She continued to scream as the thing twisted and writhed around her dangling from the knife that had nailed its head to the bark. Riddick clamped his hands hard over his ears grinning despite his discomfort. _Nearly forgot about that sonic defense,_ he chuckled watching as she franticly tried to dodge the twisting reptile with barely a break in her shrill panic. _Bark ain't' nearly thick enough to 'sorb __that__ sound_.

Her panic grew until her fear overrode her aversion and she pushed her way past the flailing body but she wanted nothing to do with _him_ either. She fled to a point equally far from both of them where she huddled against the wall panting. Riddick chuckled then turned back to the fire. "Hey, Coulter. That question you asked when we started hiking..." She looked at him, her eyes still wide, "...they got snakes here."

Her eyes narrowed, immediately filled with bright anger, "Oh...you... you," she sputtered, then snatched a piece of bark from the floor and sent it hurling broadside in his direction. "You're impossible!"

She would have liked to have clocked him in the head and her aim was good, but he blocked it easily. There was so much fire in those eyes. He could barely keep a straight face. "You throw _anything_ at me again," he informed her in a low voice that resonated with more threat than he was actually feeling, "you'll be going it alone."

Her upraised arm jerked to a stop mid fling, a second piece of bark clutched in her hand. It jerked back again as her desire warred against the warning, but common sense won out and she finally slammed the bark down to the floor. "MEN!" she fumed uselessly, and then she turned her back on him and wrapped her arms around her knees. Riddick smiled. There was a lot of explosive in that little package.

Several minutes later as the writhing began to subside, and Riddick stirred his large frame toward the snake. "Is it dead?" she asked edgily, cringing away as he took hold of the neck and pulled his knife from the bark. She was still angry, but her desire to know she was safe again was stronger.

"Been dead. Just needed some time to realize it."

"Was it poisonous?"

That was something he was going to check anyway so Riddick looked it over critically, prying open its mouth with his blade. It didn't have fangs or any other characteristics of a venomous snake, not that poison in the head would affect his plans for the rest of it. "Don't appear so."

She seemed particularly relieved at that and Riddick wondered if that meant she thought it was harmless. If that was the case, she was mistaken. It might not have been a _big_ threat, but it was far from safe. The snake was a hefty beast, muscled for constricting, and longer than he was tall. It was colored for canopy living, it's scales shaded a sunlit green broken with symmetrical patterns of yellows and golds, but there were enough browns worked in that an occasional foray to the ground would have been covered too. A row of small spikes ran down its back and protruded from the back of its head. It appeared there might be another set running folded down its sides. The frail was lucky they hadn't deployed while the thing was spasming. They weren't big, but they were relatively pointed. They were probably useful in crack climbing such as it had just been doing, and would make the snake an uncomfortable mouthful to a predator. They could have easily given the girl a few unpleasant gouges.

Denise stared at the creature dangling from his hand, flinching at a left over twitch. "I can't believe your touching that thing."

"I'm gonna do more than that," he grinned, then crouched and brought his blade down some fifteen centimeters behind the head severing it from the body. She jerked back and stared in shock, then when he flipped the carcass and began slitting the belly from the vent to neck her astonishment grew as she recalled his prefacing question.

"Oh no... You don't mean... You can't be thinking... There's no way I'm eating _that!_"

"Thought you were hungry."

"Not _that_ hungry!" and when he began to remove the innards from the slit in the belly she turned back away quickly.

"Squeamish too?" he assessed dryly.

She didn't look back. "Let's just say the food I usually buy isn't nearly so fresh." She shuddered and put her head on her knees. Riddick weighed her reaction. She wasn't getting sick or out and out fainting, but it still wasn't reassuring. _We hit a hot spot,_ he asked silently, _you gonna be of any use at all? Not something I'll be bettin' on._

He finished his chore quickly, making a hole in the bark floor by the wall deep enough to bury the head and the offal. They weren't going to be staying long enough for it to become a problem, and between the bark and the perfume he'd be amazed if anything could smell it, _but that ain't something I'm b__etting on either. _Loosening the skin around the neck, he then gripped the bare meat and stripped the skin down, from neck to vent, in a single piece and cut it off with the tail. It was a good skin, but after brief consideration Riddick reluctantly dumped it in the hole too. If he'd been making plans to stay a little longer, he could've tanned it - snake skin had its uses and even value in the right circles - but as it was, he wouldn't have time. _Real shame._ He chopped the beast into more manageable pieces before rubbing them with a little salt and setting about getting a few nice chunks cooking. Were it a real survival situation he would have elected for boiling for the nutrition that would've been saved in the water, but here he had options. _Been a bit since I got to have real wild meat roasted on a fire. Shame I won't be able to smell it cooking._

It didn't take long for the frail to become bored with the wall, and she finally dared turn around to check out the curiously shaped meat sizzling over the flames. Gutted, skinned, pieced and skewered, the snake bore little resemblance to the startling green and gold canopy dweller it had been. In fact it looked a great deal more like something that might actually be edible. When Riddick finally pulled the meat off the flames Denise watched him with guarded interest as he took a piece and sampled it. To a degree this was a bigger chance than the berries had been because Riddick hadn't been able to test the meat any other way, but it was a hedged bet.

As a general rule animals didn't have poisonous flesh unless they were adapted to dining on something toxic, and even then they often had a way of filtering their diet's toxins out of their body or even tucking it away for use in their own defenses, but not all of them. Turtle types could be chancy. The real trick in survival was not necessarily knowing what _to_ eat so much as it was knowing what _not_ to eat - the _nots_ were a shorter list so that made it easier to remember - because if you _were_ going to play with dangerous meat, you better know who had what kind of poison and in which glands _exactly_ before you started skinning.

Another general rule was the flesh of any snake was safe because their toxins - if they had any - were generally localized in the head, and any venom that might have tainted the meat from a bad skin job or bites from itself or another snake would break down under the heat of cooking... _as a general rule_. That was the problem with a good number of planets... they pitched the general rules out an airlock. But what he'd read tagged this planet as reasonably earthlike and from what he was seeing so far its designers hadn't tried to go too far off standard in their adaptations. That didn't mean everything was 'safe', but it made him more willing to take risks. He closed his eyes looking for tell tale signs of undesired ingredients, but the snake seemed as clean as the blackberries.

"Ready to take another chance?" he raised an eyebrow at the wary secretary as he speared another piece and held it out on the tip of his knife.

Riddick had no idea how much of her hesitation was "could it be poisonous?" and how much of it was "do I really want to eat _snake?_" but when she finally reached out to take it he couldn't help hearing, "I trust your judgment," in the back of his mind.

The girl handled the meat gingerly. It _was_ hot, but her expression seemed more on the order of expecting it to grow head, tail and fangs. After a moment she took a nibble, and then another, and finally braved a bite. "Its kind of stringy," she commented after due consideration, "...tastes somewhere between fish and fowl but I guess it's not too bad all things considered. It's certainly better than that goo I ate last night."

"_Anything_ would be better than that," he agreed. A faint grin flickered across Riddick's lips as he recalled her reluctant meal sucking up the semi solid gunk she'd made of her supper. "Those bars are decent for rations, but they're made to eat solid."

"Tell me something I don't know!" she said and her statement was so emphatic that Riddick couldn't help but chuckle. _Live and learn, girl, at least that lesson only cost your taste buds._

They pitched their bones in the fire pit as they went, and by the time they were finished they'd eaten all four pieces that Riddick had roasted. Almost as much raw snake remained and Riddick set those up to roast. In the mean time they cleaned up themselves and their living space up as best as could be done with their limited resources. It was too late to do much about the blood on his boot, but there was no sense setting themselves up to advertise, "I've been handling meat," cooked or otherwise, if it could be helped. He could see the girl was reluctant as a broad yawn split her face, but she was either honoring her promise or a little clean was better than a little sleep because she put in the effort. When the second batch of meat was done Riddick took it off the flames and sacrificed a piece of the mesh to wrap it.

"What's that for?" she asked through a second yawn.

"Breakfast." he answered briefly and cut a ledge in the bark wall to keep it off the floor. If they heat it up tomorrow, they'd have some extra protein with breakfast. That would be a good thing because the girl had shown she could push through so they'd be covering ground again and he had no idea when lunch would be... if at all.

When things were finally tucked away, Riddick went about setting up the fire for the night. His shoulder had been griping him all evening but when he took hold of a piece of wood to place on the fire the angle caught it wrong and it flared. His breath sucked briefly between his teeth at the unexpected flash of pain, and the girl keyed in on it.

"You overdid it up there, didn't you?" she glanced up toward the chimney.

"Had to be done," Riddick stated as he put the wood on the fire then reached up to rub at the ache.

She watched him a moment, then stirred herself from her side of the fire. "Let me do that," she offered, but it was said as less a question than an expectation.

Riddick raised an eyebrow at her boldness. It didn't matter that Riddick _wanted_ the massage she offered. The animal inside had roused itself just as loudly, reminding him that the girl he was thinking to let behind him was packing now. It was enough to make him reconsider.

"What?" she stopped halfway as he continued to stare at her. She looked up and down and around suddenly fearing his reaction might mean another intruder, but when her scan didn't revealed any additional 'guests' a look of irritation took over her features. "What?" Riddick had no answer, not quite sure how to explain the discrepancy between trusting her with a gun, and _not_ trusting her with a gun behind him. "Oh, please, we're not going through that again are we? Like you're still not the only reason I'm here and alive and getting home in one piece? Why...?" Irritation suddenly gave way to thoughtfulness, and thoughtfulness to revelation a mere moment later.

"Oh, wait..." She reached up under her arm feeling briefly, then awkwardly pulled her little mousegun out of the holster. "Is this the problem?" Despite her exaggerated care, Riddick's muscles tensed at the sight of the bared firearm. She squinted at it in the half light, keeping it pointed away from him, then knelt down to use the light of the fire to verify she'd found the release. She popped the clip, separating the gun into two pieces then held them up in separate hands. "Better?" She tossed them both in front of him, and after his big hands engulfed both pieces, he relented and gave her his back. He half expected some wisecrack, but none was forthcoming. _Another side effect of working with a crime boss? Understandin' men who shy at other people's guns?_

He was coming to know what to expect when she got back there... proximity brought a subtle shift to her stench, teasing him with the knowledge that something much richer, much more intimate, lay beneath it. There was also a pattern to her work... the light easing strokes that warmed her cool hands and asked tight muscles to relax before she started seeking hot spots. Tonight she had him take off his shirt and she found every knot across both shoulders and down his back. She worked his sore shoulder with extra care, getting in just deep enough to work the injury, but not hard enough to set it off again. It was feeling abused, and he winced on occasion, but he let her go because he knew it would pay off in the long run. Her work would help prevent scar tissue from forming and it moved better when she was done, but it felt... odd... being touched this way. Her motives were self serving. There were no two ways about it. She'd nailed it down fine... his job, so far as she was concerned, was to get her out in one piece and he could do that better if he could move. It was that simple... but it still felt strange. Somebody seeing to _his_ need... somebody caring about _his_ pain. It tickled on the notion Jacobson had implanted... the pipe dream of a wife... of someone who could actually care about someone like him... and Riddick deliberately ignored it. _Ain't possible... Not for me._

Toward the tail end of the rub down he was hearing the girl yawn, and he didn't need to be looking to tell they were the big jaw cracking kind. She'd put in another hard day and it was catching up with her.

"Do you think there are any more snakes up there?" But she was still awake enough to worry about beasties.

Riddick looked up, picking out a few scattered stars peeking through the foliage far above, and then stretched carefully testing the shoulder. "If they haven't shown up by now, probably not." _That cat on the other hand... _ The massage had done it good, but it wasn't ready for a fight. Massages weren't going to do that, not overnight. He gave her a nod that passed for "Thanks," or a dismissal or maybe both.

"Good," she said through another yawn as she moved tiredly back to her space, then she drowsily added over her shoulder, "because if you think I was loud when that snake fell on me, you don't even _want_ to hear what I'll do if I find one sleeping with me."

Riddick flashed an unrepentant grin. _Caught that did you?_

The fire lit tree hollow was cozy. Largely insulated from the night sounds by the thick bark it felt isolated from the world outside so the girl didn't instigate the gradual migration to his side that she had previously. Bedding down, however, still wasn't a simple procedure. She was used to something else and it was showing. She lay down, shifted and squirmed a bit before sitting up again. She threw a few offending pieces of bark in the fire, rearranged the rest, then laid back down. She did this three times, each time her actions becoming just a little more lethargic. It reminded Riddick of a canine turning in circles to shape out a nest although her technique was a great deal more laborious. Finally, she flopped down with her back to him and the fire and pulled her bag in close to use for her pillow.

"You know," she murmured sleepily, "you were right about you're being full of surprises."

"Oh?"

"Good hands and a decent cook," she said sleepily with one last yawn in-between. "Who'd have guessed." Minutes later she was asleep and Riddick was left to wonder how anyone could open their mind wide enough to find _any_ redeeming qualities in _him_... and what other surprises this frail had in store for him.

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A different kind of peace fell over them, disturbed only occasionally by the girl's restless shifting. The give of the bark made a half way decent bed if you were used to worse, but she wasn't... or maybe she was missing her 'security blanket' in the form of a shiv-happy, mass murdering, serial killer. The irony of that still got him. A portion of the forest's sounds drifted down from above and through the door, but there was little to disturb Riddick's dozing. He woke up at odd intervals when it became _too_ quiet... when the faint snap of the fire started to die and the cool of the night began to creep in... so he could add wood and keep the flame alive. Other than that, the night was downright serene...

... until the first faint fading began to touch the darkness above.

Riddick had felt the chill whisper in with the damp of the early morning fog, but their hollow and the fire kept most of it at bay. He had just fed a piece of wood to the dwindling flames and had begun to doze off again when he felt it... his short hairs rippling down the back of his neck as an electric tingle woke him instantly. He didn't move as he sought the cause of the premonition, and hoped the girl would do the same. For the moment she'd gone still. He wanted her to stay that way.

The blend of tree and girl left him nose blind and the shade of black outside was something more than he could see through even without the fire screwing up his night vision so he focused on listening instead. What he heard wasn't much... if the fire had been any more active it might have crowded the faint sound out... but what he heard told him a lot.

Outside the door was the faint padding of big soft feet over the loose bark. _Cat?_ The sound was odd in a way he couldn't quite nail down, but this wasn't the stealthy step of a hunter stalking its prey - he didn't think he would have heard that and this pace was too random. This was a careless, curious pace as the predator explored the area encountering the assortment of scent trails he and Coulter had left as they prepared their camp. It passed by the opening, and Riddick looked, straining to see into the blackness beyond the door's framework for a glimpse of the beast, but saw nothing. A short time later, however, it returned. He heard the bark shift under its weight as it approached and Riddick tensed but didn't move. He stared into the darkness beyond their 'door' and caught a brief reflection of firelight bouncing off the gleaming wetness of eyes a hand's span apart. The thing huffed curiously and Riddick's eyes flicked to the sleeping figure across the fire.

_Keep still, Coulter!_ Riddick thought hard at the girl as if she could hear him, willing her to remain motionless. _This thing don't know just how close the prey it's hunting is. _The eyes blinked as the creature sniffed the opening. _...but it's tryin' to find out. _Suddenly it sneezed fiercely and growled low in its throat. Then the eyes were gone.

_Damn if that perfume didn't come in handy after all,_ Riddick thought briefly, and then he was moving with quiet focus... sitting up silently, his hands reaching. His shorthairs were standing on end. He knew where the beast was headed next as clearly as if he could see it. It was circling around to where he'd climbed the vines and Riddick grabbed the tinder without even needing to look for it - knowing exactly where it was thanks to the girl's obsessive need to organize - and thrust it into the flames. It flashed to brightness instantly and he added a handful of sticks and bark slivers to it before it could die off. As they caught fire he heard a soft whump against the outer wall and the girl shifted, but he hadn't time to pay her any attention.

His knife was in hand and he grabbed one of the green sticks left over from making the door and began shaving strips of bark into the fire with short rapid movements. The strips of green bark curled and blackened even as the fire began to smoke. It wasn't as much as he wanted, but it was evidently enough. Riddick heard the scratch of claws on the bark above and dared to look up. On one side the stars he had glimpsed through the foliage were blocked - a large dark shape interposed between the chimney and canopy - then another sneeze resounded in the little hollow and the shape was gone.

Within minutes Riddick felt his shorthairs stand down. It - whatever _it_ was - was gone. He played with the fire for a few minutes setting it up to burn a few hours longer. The effects of his adrenaline rush were beginning to ebb while across the way the frail continued to breathe soft and even... continued to sleep oblivious to the little drama that had just occurred. _Go ahead, sleeping beauty_, he growled silently_, enjoy your rest 'cause today we're picking it up another notch._

Riddick then, very deliberately, set about releasing the tension that had built up in his muscles. Their visitor was gone, and he knew better than to let an event done and over with continue to cause stress, not when he had a chance to grab some much wanted shut-eye instead. Their 'defenses' - such as they were - seemed to have held and he wasn't expecting the visitor to return again this morning. He threw what was left of the green stick in the flames then finally put his back to it and consciously slowed his breathing... consciously relaxed... and consciously let himself sink a little deeper than he had previously into that realm he called rest. He was going to take advantage of the moment. When he woke up it would be time to get busy, but until then he had a chance to actually sleep and those moments didn't come around very often.

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**-oOo-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Shaden** - Massive apologies for the delay in updating. Hopefully you won't have to reread _again_ but it has been a _long_ time. No excuses beyond life in general. Well, if you didn't like the distance they covered in the last chapter, you really aren't happy with me now - LOL - but I'm working toward something, and your chapter is coming up soon(?).  
Yeah, I kind of like how Denise is coming along... not the stereotypical 'bimbo', I believe someone called her - LOL - that she started out. Hopefully she will continue to round out believably. I also know just how far her and Riddick's relationship is going to develop, but I'm not telling you - ;oP - you'll just have to wait and see. Only a few chapters to go :0). Thanks for the kind words and the prayers. You're still in mine too.

**NotAfraidToLive** - You're welcome for the update and sorry for making you wait _again_. I have no intention of dropping _any_ of my stories, but thank goodness I'm not trying to meet any deadlines to earn a paycheck :o), of course if I was maybe I could devote more time to writing - LOL. Oh well. Thank you for the praise. I can't ask for better than LOVED it! Hope this one still holds to the bar.

**Brimseye** - From "haha, loved the perfume" to "don't buy it" in three chapters. Bummer. No offense taken though... I'm just sorry it's not working for you. I agree, whole heartedly, that Riddick would be highly unlikely to put any effort into saving a gal he'd never met before... not for free anyway. That's why the 25,000 credit bounty that he could collect on, but I think there are times Riddick is starting to wonder if that's enough - LOL.  
As for Denise not running off into the jungle, well, she sorta tried, but had some sense knocked into her - rather literally. Think about it from her point a view when she woke up the _second_ time. She realized he _had_ saved her life, he _hadn't_ acted hostile and he _hadn't_ taken advantage of her even though the opportunity was there. Under those circumstances might you not decided to take the chance of possible survival, however risky, over the prospect of certain death? I know I would. Survival is a powerful motivator, but you'll have to decide whether that flies for you or not.  
Thanks for the other compliments though. It's good to know Turn About has _some _redeeming features ;o). And Logan, yeah, he's one of my fave X-men (although I haven't collected for quite awhile). Maybe that _is_ where I picked up 'frail' - :oD - I was wondering. I really appreciated your review. Thanks again.

**Blade for Hire** - Thanks! I am trying very hard to keep him in character, and it's not always easy considering Denise is not the sort of personality he normally interacts with so, for the most part, I'm having to wing it - LOL. Your comments give me hope I'm not straying to far :o). Let me know what you think as this odd couple continues to make their way through the forest :oD.

**Starnyx** - Where do you think you need to apologize for a late review... look how long it took me to update! Sauce for the goose I'd say - LOL. Thanks, for the characterization praise. Who'd have ever guessed I could have so much fun trying to think like an air headed secretary.

**Vinbabe** - Thanks SO much! Such high praise is a real encouragement, and I hope you've enjoyed this update as well. This story has been a challenge because the plot is so 'atypical' and I am thrilled it is keeping your interest. Let me know if it continues to do so. Thanks again.

**Anna's pastime** - Welcome aboard - you know how to make an impression! GRIN Two juicy reviews in the space of two chapters. Talk about making a writer feel special - LOL. I appreciate the "Romancing the Stone" comment, but it has been too long since I've seen it to groan. I do remember the two main characters having disparagingly different personalities... I'll have to try to remember to find it next time I rent movies.  
Thank you for the characterization kudos. A writer can't help but "make the canon character their own" in the course of writing, especially back story because to a great deal our past shapes who we are, so, yes, I did do quite a bit of research before I started and I'm trying hard to keep Riddick believable. As you indicated, he's complicated, so I am pleased you are enjoying my portrayal of him in Turn About.

Speaking of research, you prompted me to go do a little more. I went back and watched a few scenes and pulled out the First Edition script of PB I found and not a "yer" in sight so I've gone back and edited not only Turn About, but my other stories as well. Thanks for the critique. As for the other little mistakes, let me know if I've got anything else I'm doing consistently. I just started with betas last chapter and they are definitely helping me catch some things :o).

Thanks so much of the review. Yours is the kind that falls in my "love to receive" category - Letting me know the specific things you're enjoying, but not afraid to point out specific things you think I'm doing wrong. Thank you for taking the time to do so. You'll never realize just how much it is appreciated!

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**MY CONTINUING PROMISE:**  
As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.  
The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("only" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between 4 stories, 3 kids, (2 six and under), 1 husband and the life that contains them all and more, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.

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	11. Chapter 11: …And Whistles

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 11**

**... and Whistles**

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**Acknowledgements: **Sorry this chapter was so long in coming. I got stuck in the middle of the fight scene I've been promising and just couldn't manage to get it over the hump. I finally lamented this to a friend I made on FanLib, here known as FreeSpiritThinker, and she sat down and in an insanely short time whipped me up a brain storm that literally punt kicked my writer's block over the hump and through the goal. My undying thanks to her for the inspiration, and also to Starnyx, whose persistent beta reading is, IMHO, improving this story in particular, and my writing as a whole.

**Author's Note:** This is a stand alone tale, but it is part of a larger story arc and this chapter makes a brief reference to** Carawa Colony** which is introduced in my story Be Still: Chances. It is _my_ reason that Riddick is a hunted man. In short, in acting to prevent a secret attack on the civilian colony Carawa, Riddick feels he must eliminate an entire company of crooked mercs and is then, himself, tried and convicted of killing the nearly 500 mercenaries. (While the killing of a company of mercs is a supposedly canon event - I have positioned it a little differently in my timeline. I invite you to check out my History of Riddick: A Writers Guide if you would like to see where it fits in known canon.)

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Morning came soon enough and, astonishingly, he wasn't the first one up. On a level somewhere near instinctive he heard the girl moving, identified the sounds as 'no threat' and continued to doze. By the time she actually started doing things he was more cognizant, but he continued to lie quiet appreciating the 'don't-have-anything-to-do-right-now' moment and curious what she was up to. He was sure her lumpy bark bed had something to do with her early rising, or perhaps another personal need, but he had no desire to stir himself. The fog would keep them pinned for a while longer. He was in no rush... yet.

The low heat on his arm told him the fire was dwindling again. He heard her poke around at the diminishing flames, then crawl quietly... for her, anyways... over and pull a piece of wood from the pile. He was blocking the back route so she had to make her way round the front side of the fire and past the door to get it. At the door she paused, looking out into the dimness. The light filtering through the canopy had turned the forest beyond from impenetrable darkness to misty obscurity... a gray wall of wraithlike fog that oozed and undulated beyond the 'doorway' and she stared, transfixed by the shifting patterns. After a few minutes she shook herself free and continued about her task moving with new purpose.

Her version of quiet was relatively ridiculous. If he hadn't already been awake, it would not have taken long. Riddick listened, having no problem picturing her movements in his mind's eye even without the running monologue to track her by. She was murmuring again, albeit more softly than before, going over his instructions for building up the fire nearly verbatim and reassuring herself that she was going to be fine... that nothing else was coming to visit, that there was no sign of boars, and that even if there were they had a nice sturdy door in the way. The sounds went curious for a few minutes as it seemed she was rearranging some of the stones around the pit... _What? Just noticed they're not arranged __by size and color order?_...and a few quiet exclamations told him she was getting her hands too close to the heat, but in very short order he heard her attention shift. Her murmuring continued as he heard her digging into the outside pocket on her bag where he'd found her PCD then ceased a moment later as he heard her little brush power up.

She went quiet for a time as she drew the device through her hair stroke after stroke and sighed... a little piece of familiar comfort. Without him looking over her shoulder she took her time, drawing the little styling session out. The soft repetitious sound of the brush pulling through her hair was as calming as any white noise device and almost lulled him back to sleep, but instead his thoughts took a different tangent as he found himself lazily considering how different they were... how far left his life had turned. She had a home planet. She had a job. She had a boss. The little rituals that kept her sane when thrust into the unknown were so uselessly mundane... brushing hair, organizing... He had none of those things - home, job, boss - and his 'comfort' rituals all centered around knowing he was ready... ready to defend himself, ready to run, ready to kill... His musing was interrupted when a series of little beeps indicated she was checking the results of her efforts and he smiled at the irritated exhalation that followed.

The muttering started up again this time covering the damp, the fog, the lack of personal hygiene facilities, privacy and the cost of having to get her hair completely restyled when she got out of here. It was shortly after that that the sounds went wholly strange. The murmuring didn't stop, and it wasn't that the sounds were unnatural, it was just that they weren't anything expected. It sounded like she was... _digging_?

His first thought was she was too scared of being a bother to wake him, and too desperate to wait for a latrine trip, but that didn't work. The sounds put the hole too close to the fire to do that sort of business comfortably, and he was certain she was smart enough to avoid burning _that_ part of her anatomy. Curiosity got the better of him, but there was no sense in getting a crick in the neck out of it.

Riddick rolled to his side letting his head come to rest pillowed on his arm without revealing he was awake. When he moved both the activity and the murmuring stopped, but when he didn't move further her quiet grievances resumed. Having drawn attention to himself, he found the subject of her one sided conversation shifted to include him. She touched lightly on a couple subjects... his chauvinistic behavior and overbearing attitudes then she continued into his perverse sense of humor. She seemed particularly irritated at being made a fool of by a dead snake, "although," she added primly, "it's not like it was _acting_ dead at the time." The memory of it wanted to pull another smile to Riddick's lips, but he contained himself retorting silently, _It ain't chauvinism, sister. You're a total inept in the woods. You make it easy. _

She was well into a quiet tirade branching into snakes, snails and her hope that there were no spiders when he started watching her through half slitted eyes. She had indeed dug a hole in the bark floor, and as he watched she carefully used sticks to maneuver rocks she had heated up in the fire and put them in her hole. She lay a few carefully chosen bark pieces on top, then added his package of snake from the little shelf in the back wall before beginning to fill the hole back up with bark. He knew what she was doing... he knew _exactly_ what she was doing... but the question was where'd a citified urban secretary from a tech-oriented planet learn to do it?

He dropped his pretense and openly watched her finish filling in the hole. _Never a dull moment with you, Coulter._ As she finished she sat back, wiping her hands on her legs as she glanced around, and when she glanced over him she did a double take then froze.

"Oh," she exclaimed softly, "Did I make too much noise? I tried to be quiet."

"I'm a light sleeper," Riddick responded flatly as he sat up. Once he was settled, he began a nearly invisible inventory of his physical condition. It wasn't as good as going through a good muscle stretching kata, and he hoped he'd have an opportunity to do one before they hit the trail, but he wanted to know where he stood sooner than later.

"I'm sorry," the girl murmured contritely taking his fact as chastisement. "I only wanted to help."

"Not a bad thing if you know what you're doing, and you look like you might," he commented nodding to the hole she'd just filled in. He was taking his time tensing each muscle group and paying attention to the signals it sent back to his brain. His shoulder, of course, protested.

"Oh, that. I guess some of it's coming back to me."

"You've had to rough it before?"

"Yeah, my mom took me camping once... something like twelve UCT_(__¤)_ years ago. It's been awhile."

(¤ Universal Coordinated Time)

"Your mom took you," he raised an eyebrow, "... once?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Long story short, my mom and dad came from different parts of the galaxy but their jobs put them traveling in the same circle and they ended up working together. They hit it off, got married and when I came along they decided to settle down... do the family thing. That part didn't work out so well. Mom left when I was two. Dad said she had a family emergency, but she didn't come back. He said she just wasn't cut out for the domestic life. It wasn't like she _left_ left, but it was nearly the same. She sent credits back now and again and popped in to visit a few times, but she was pretty much a no call/no show when I was growing up."

In the space of a few sentences he watched Denise's whole demeanor shift. She shook her head and Riddick knew the feeling. Old hurts. Couldn't be helped. Couldn't be changed. That's why he tried hard not to waste his time thinking about them.

"Then when I turned thirteen she not only made an appearance, but she took me out of school, and took me camping in the way back. She told me I'd become a young woman, put me through this rite of passage, and spent the rest of the time telling me about her side of the family. When she was done she took me home and disappeared again. I've only seen her, like, twice since. Maybe that's why I like THS hiking so much. It reminds me of the one good time I spent with my mom, but without any of the dangers."

_Dangers? _"What dangers are those?"

"Whatever lives in the woods," she replied resolutely casting a wary glance outside. "Ever heard of a Mogous?"

Riddick shook his head.

"I loved camping with my mom, and then... I try hard not to think about it. For years I've been trying to convince myself that part was just a bad dream... but it wasn't, and being here is really bringing it back. The trees are different; the colors are different, but there's enough the same to make it all real again." She shuddered. "A Mogous is a big hairy beast... long teeth, long claws, big appetite. We came back one day and found our camp torn up pretty badly. Mom was more irritated than anything. Later, when we were hiking, I thought I kept hearing something in the bushes. Turns out it was stalking us and it had killed seven people over the last several months. There were warnings posted all around the park entrances, but we'd come in a back way."

"How'd you get away from it?"

"We didn't. A professional hunter had been hired to find it and take it down before it could hurt anyone else. They did their job."

"But cut it close," Riddick anticipated.

"Yeah," Denise wrapped her arms around herself protectively. "Real close. I heard a shot and the next thing I know the monster falls out of the brush screaming and writhing not 20 meters away. It was still trying to claw its way toward me when it finally died." She shuddered. "The hunter said it had been like chasing a ghost. The animal had a wicked intelligence and it had taken on a preference for human meat. Took live bait to draw it out. We ended up serving the purpose."

So its not just a city dweller's fear of a foreign environment, Riddick mused. There's a real reason this girl's freaked by the woods. Might explain guns too. Guess I should be glad it's not worse, considering. Basket case wouldn't be worth the effort, but all told she's holding it together sufficient.

"Mogous, mob courier, captured for bounty, stranded with a killer... Your life is just full of excitement," Riddick said dryly. It was no comparison to his, but few were.

"Yeah," she said just as dryly. "Dad says I'm my mother's daughter... that it's in the genes. I don't know if I agree with that. This is never what I wanted to be." She sighed. "...It's just what I've become."

"What did you want to be?" Riddick didn't know why he was curious now. The frail was growing on him... not enough to forgo 25,000, but she was growing on him.

"I don't know... emergency rescue? I never really had a chance to find out. Life just sort of put me here."

_Know the feeling._ "Emergency rescue? No excitement there," Riddick replied sardonically.

She laughed. "Okay, okay, maybe a little excitement, but there would probably be plenty to do right on my home planet. I wouldn't be running willy-nilly across the galaxy and... well, I'd be doing something good with my life... _seeing_ lives _saved_. I would've liked that."

"Yeah," Riddick was surprised with how the statement resonated. "Me too."

His comment was said with such rancor that whatever she might have replied was halted as she stared at him in surprise. _Old wound,_ he thought bitterly, _old open wound. _It was one of those things he tried not to think about, because when he did he felt it. Carawa Colony should have been that... doing something good... saving lives. He supposed in that regard he succeeded. He _had_ saved lives, but it had cost _him_ everything. It had put him _here_, a convicted mass murderer on the run hoping to sell this frail for a chance at obscurity.

Riddick met her stare, reading an intense curiosity. What was it about this air headed girl that made him willing to say something like that... that made him consider saying more. Because she seemed willing to see something beyond the monster he was supposed to be? "Tried to do something good once," he added. "Got screwed." _Understatement of the lifetime._

She waited, thinking more might follow, but when it didn't she just shook her head. "Sometimes life sucks," she said simply.

Riddick was surprised to hear _that_ vernacular come out of _her_ mouth, but he had to agree, and there just wasn't a more polite way to say it.

A bit later it was cold bars and warm snake for breakfast. The girl didn't shirk this time, but took her portion and cleaned it to bare bones before tossing the remnants in the fire. They ate their bars in silence, her wrapper following his within a minute or so, and then it was time to seriously start their day.

Riddick weighed his options carefully. He wasn't getting any kind of warning from his short hairs, but often that was an imminent danger sort of thing. It had saved his neck on more than one occasion, but sometimes the difference between imminent danger and sliding by altogether was just a little good healthy paranoia. He knew the cat was out there, and he knew it was out to get him. The question was, was it near by. There was something unsettling about the thought of removing their sole ground level defense and going for a stroll if the cat was anywhere in the vicinity. On the other hand, going for high ground from the inside promised to be an uncomfortable affair.

Riddick stood and analyzed the slope of the interior wall, then kicked the fire apart and drew a knife for either hand shifting their grip. Since when did he let a little pain stop him?

"You're not..." he heard the girl start behind him.

He crouched low and launched himself upward. At the height of his leap he embedded both knives horizontally into the bark. A flare went through his shoulder at the impact and he quickly shifted to keep most his weight off it, but he kept moving. The curve of the wall left his feet dangling, so it was one arm alone that pulled him up nearly to the level of the knives.

"You are," she finished with an edge of awe below him.

The curve of the wall made it awkward, but he pulled his good arm loose and embedded the blade higher. For the brief second that his sore shoulder had to bear his weight the limb screamed, and he growled. The pain diminished only slightly as he took his weight onto his good arm again.

As his weight swung out to meet the new angle, he used it to help pull the second knife. Even so, he grunted painfully as it jerked free. He pulled himself up on the one good arm, and then grunted and growled again as he sunk the second blade in beside the first. He took his weight on it and repositioned the other knife again. Were he using two good arms he would've had no problem scaling this mess one arm over the other, nearly as quick as scaling a ladder. This method was quickly proving to be laborious and excruciating, but the thought of crawling out the front door and finding his fan club curled up around the corner was enough to keep him going.

He was making progress and was so focused that he nearly forgot he had an audience.

"Overdoing it again?" interrupted his concentration.

Great. Comments from the peanut gallery. "Probably," he answered honestly.

"Any reason why you're going up there to look around when we have a perfectly good door you can go out?" she pursued.

"Thought I heard something last night. Wanted to make sure it wasn't hanging around before we opened up."

"What would want to hang around here?" The question seemed innocent, but there was an almost undetectable undertone to it... an almost 'Is there something you're not telling me?' tone.

"Bigger snake?" he suggested.

She stopped asking questions.

When he reached the "chimney" he pushed off and hooked an arm over the branch bisecting the opening. It shifted under his weight, but Riddick already knew it could hold him. His sore shoulder was all but rebelling so rather than try to finagle his knife back in its sheath he let the weapon drop as he swung over. It fell down into the bark carpet with a hollow thud and Denise jumped away from it with a little yelp. She hadn't been in any danger, but it been had close... deliberately.

"Hey!" she exclaimed as he swung himself up onto the branch and settled into a balanced crouch. His shoulder was throbbing like it was getting beat with a stick, but his other arm felt a comfortable warmth that told him those muscles had started to get a nice workout. It wasn't the full body wake up that a good kata was, but it had certainly got his blood moving. If he discounted the shoulder, it felt good. He looked down into the darkness below him where the dim figure of the girl glared up.

"Don't let me forget that," he tossed down, humor in his voice. Coulter was a vague shape edged in gray by the little light coming in around him and through the door, but he could tell she was in that hands-on-hips mode again. "Got a problem? You free climb. Come on up," he invited with a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "We'll talk about my overbearing attitude."

"Your ov..." she started, then caught the double trap. "Climb? No, oh no!" her hands fell off her hips, and she took a step back only to run into the high side of the wall. "No, thank you!" she added emphatically.

"Oh, _that's_ right," he rumbled letting a smug smile spread across his broad lips. "Afraid of heights. Too bad." He chuckled, then added, "Don't go no where," and proceeded up to a better vantage point as she sputtered below.

If there had been any question regarding the reality of their visitor, it was laid to rest as soon as he reached the top. Fresh gouges carved by sharp claws pierced the woody flesh of the vines, and Riddick did a quick scan down and around making sure that the animal wasn't waiting somewhere nearby. All was quiet but the pattern of gouges up the side of the tree was due a moment's consideration. They were obvious... pale exposed wood contrasting against dark barky skin. Coulter was a bit baffle brained when it came to the woods, but she was proving to be perceptive and this would be hard to miss. No scenic tours around the homestead when it came time to leave. If she saw these, figuring 2 and 2 might not be far behind. He didn't need her knowing they were being stalked by another 'Mogous'... not yet anyways.

Initial scan done, Riddick settled in to check the scene out a little more thoroughly. The fog shrouded forest had taken on its eerie primeval cloak again, but from this higher vantage Riddick almost felt removed. Around him everything was an unnatural shade of silent surreal. Below him the mist shifted and thinned occasionally revealing clumps of ferns like lacy dark skeletons of alien life. The tree trunks were unmoving gray and slate columns fading into gauzy veils of undulating pale, but as your eyes climbed... It seemed a dead monotone world void of color and life, but suspended in between - neither above nor below - Riddick could see... he could _feel... _ the coming dawn in faint but growing tones tinting the canopy. It was like watching a vid shot in black & white with the audio off, but someone in special effects was tinkering with the colors throwing a wash of day-glow green into the upper frame.

Even as he watched, the shade intensified fractionally. It wasn't going to be too long before they'd be moving through it again... leaving their walls behind... making themselves prey again. After the close encounter this morning he would have liked to reconsider that plan. He was in no shape to fight, but he knew it was only a matter of time before a team was sent to investigate the crash. He hadn't _heard_ any ships overhead, and without a beacon or mayday to suggest survivors he didn't expect the search to be priority, but it would happen eventually. Yesterday, tomorrow, next week... Given the choice, he'd much rather be _off_ planet by the time they figured out Richard B. Riddick wasn't among the pieces of scrap meat left in the wreckage. He couldn't afford to hole up, not if he hoped to get off planet before security tightened down.

That meant moving... _Like that's anything new in my life_. The cat was just a complication, albeit a serious one. Riddick crouched in the twilight realm and let his senses reach out to the forest around him searching. Despite the unnatural seeming calm, Riddick knew there was an abundance of life out there. He slowly, carefully, searched the grayed out landscape from the tree to as far as he could penetrate on all sides looking for tell tale shapes... seeing if his hackles would lift... but all was quiet. The cat, it _seemed,_ were no where near.

Riddick almost wished it was right there in front of him. At least then he'd know where it was instead of having to wait for it to take a swipe at his backside. It left them using plan A. If they could push hard enough... if they could get far enough, maybe they'd leave the beast behind, but the odds were stacking against them. And the longer it followed, the more likely it was getting hungry, and it had followed this long... Unless it ran into something it thought easier prey than them, it wasn't likely to give up. _We have to push it today. That's the best hope we got._ He pulled out his compass and took his bearings through the thinner layers of fog found at his higher vantage. _And we need to be moving ASAP.  
_(**A**s **S**oon **A**s **P**ossible)

Satisfied there wasn't much more his perch could offer, Riddick made his way back down and used the cross beam to swing off to the side of the fire pit. He landed with a hollow thump. The girl let out a little 'yeep' of surprise as she straightened up from where she'd been hunched over the duffle. A dozen possibilities crossed Riddick's mind. Snitching food? Looking for her jewelry? Hoping for a communication device? But they were all replaced by another as soon as he saw the med-kit out.

"What're you up to?" he growled collecting the knife he'd dropped. _After narcotics? _ He remembered his first suspicion - that she might be on drugs - when she had been so desperate for her bag. He'd pretty much let that one slide. She wasn't _acting_ like an addict... but she _had_ been in her own bag yesterday morning... and the med-kit was open now.

"I wish you'd stop that!" Her hand was on her chest as she whirled to face him... but it wasn't the hypo in her other hand as she came about. "There are enough things out there that scare me without you going out of your way to be one... of... them" she trailed off staring at the naked blade in his hand. "You're going to give me a heart attack," she finished in a much subdued tone.

She was holding a hot/cold pack.

_Not drugs._ Was he actually relieved? Of course, there was the 'can't-turn-her-in-for-cash-if-she's-dead' part, but was there something else? He sheathed the knife and saw it acknowledged in her posture.

"As for what I was doing... I know your type. 'Probably' means 'oh, yeah,' so we aren't going anywhere until I get to pack that shoulder and see what your high altitude nature watch has done to it."

_Oh, really. _Riddick raised an eyebrow. His shoulder was throbbing, but this attitude of hers was something else. How far would she push it? Maybe he'd put his knife away too soon. "And if I say no?"

She stared at him, trying to be tough, but she couldn't hold it. "It's your shoulder, but it's my safety. I won't be happy."

"And that affects me how?"

Her eyes hardened. "Likely not at all." She shoved the hot/cold pack back in the kit and slammed it shut, and then got up and stalked to her side of the fire. She sat down with her back to him and pulled out her brush. He could tell she was angry as she began to pull the little device through her hair with short determined strokes, but that wasn't what bothered him. Riddick stared at her back and was surprised to realize as ignorant and air-headed as she was at times, she'd been decent company, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to lose that yet... not when she was right. He _had_ overdone it.

"When I get back, you'll pack it anyway," he ordered.

She turned to glare at him, but he ignored her as he consolidated water, empting one of the Steribottles into the other two containers. Shifting the 'door' aside he stepped out and took a deep breath. It was a change from tree and flowers, but damp earth and wet vegetation was just as useless. The fog rode heavier at ground level cutting back on how far he could see. Limited light, restricted visibility, no scents, no sounds... There was a reason he didn't like thick and muggy. If there _was_ anything out there, it wasn't likely to be any of the first five senses that would tell him about it.

Stepping into the mist, Riddick's neck hairs lay quiet but that didn't put Riddick at ease. He armed one hand with a knife and gripped the empty bottle with the other, trying to minimize the limb's movement because the shoulder had no qualms about letting him know it wasn't happy. By the time he reached the spring, the strangler hut had been reduced to a weighty mass of ill defined shadow. Riddick modified the drip to fill the single bottle then he swung wide to hit the latrines. After brief consideration he decided he ought to pull the girl over too while things seemed still. Plans would change if they got company before they could bug out.

She had wrestled the door back in place by the time he got back, but that didn't surprise him. "Lookin' to keep me out?"

"Is that an option?" she muttered. It wasn't meant to be heard and a moment later she was working to shift the barrier, but he'd heard it anyway.

"Not an option," he answered, "least wise if you want to get relief before the fog lifts and you still want me showin' you the way out."

She wrenched the 'door' the rest of the way aside as she gaped and then sputtered. "Do... do you listen in on _everything_ I say?"

"Pretty much," he smirked. "You got a big mouth."

"And you... you have overly sensitive hearing," she snapped back lamely.

"Maybe," he shrugged his good shoulder. She probably wasn't too far from the truth. It was one more thing that set him apart from the rest of humanity. His senses were more animal than man, but it suited his new lifestyle. Most men didn't live being hunted. "Grab the gear and we'll take care of necessities. Be a bit longer before the fog lifts. This'll be one less thing we'll need to do once we can move."

Her eyes smoldered as she stared at him, but, after a moment, she obeyed. As he waited Riddick found himself thinking back to holding her in the forest... to looking into those thunder autumn eyes that shifted with her emotions. A man who took the time could probably learn to read those eyes... not that he had the time, but she was starting to get interesting.

She was back in moments. Riddick noticed a certain anxious edge to her movement and wondered how much longer she would have been able to hold out before having to beg. He also noted an edge to the suspicious glances she was throwing at the forest. She barely watched where she was going as she searched the fog and once, as he glanced back, he saw her reach up and touch her holster. His own hand instinctively went to his pocket verifying the little gun remained where he'd stowed it as he wondered at the motion. _Reminding herself it should be there or regretting its empty? _When they reached the 'latrine' she didn't wait for him to direct her.

She was quick about it... no happier with the shrouded forest than he was, and when they were back in the tree with the 'door' up they both felt safer. He settled in leaving his back open only after again reassuring himself that her little gun was still in his pocket. "You can pack the shoulder now," he ordered.

"Oh, I can, can I?" she came back.

_Still miffed, huh? _"Yeah," Riddick stated pointedly. "You can."

There was a moment of rebellion and he wondered if he'd have to start counting, but the benefits of obeying evidently outweighed holding a grudge. That, however, didn't stop her from venting. She moved to the duffle, putting her back to him even as she started up with the muttering again. It was softer than ever, but still audible to him as she jerked the hot/cold pack out of the med-kit. "You can pack the shoulder now," she repeated sarcastically. "Couldn't be 'This would be a good time to pack my shoulder. Thanks for the offer.' Couldn't be 'I'd _appreciate_ you seeing to my shoulder now.' No! Mr. This-Affects-Me-How says, 'you can pack it'..." She fell silent as she turned around with the pack in her hand.

"Like I said," Riddick informed her over his shoulder, "you got a big mouth."

"You...!" she started then clamped down. "Men," he heard her issue her favorite invective under her breath before finally settling herself behind him. He wondered briefly what he had set himself up for but the hands that pressed the pack against the worst of the pain were gentle. He felt her activate the pack, and it pulled against his skin, molding to the contours of his shoulder, before it began to warm. Coulter made sure everything was functioning properly then began working the muscles on the other side. That surprised him, but he realized it was probably as much agitation as anything else. She needed to _do_ something and there weren't many options in their little space. He didn't argue.

But there was a difference to the presence behind him this time around... a subtle difference to the tone of her hands... a subtle difference to the scent he couldn't quite pick up... _damn her perfume... his_ favorite invective this trip. The question he found himself asking was why was she so agitated? Did she even know? She _was_ angry. It wasn't hard to imagine that was the sole cause, but knowing what he knew now, he had to wonder if something else was part of the mix. She'd been in the woods before. She'd been _hunted_ before. How much of this twitchiness of hers might actually be instinctive awareness?

The heat under the pack grew steadily, seeping into his skin and muscle melting the ache. It would be short lived relief. This deep into the trees the fog hung around a little longer, but it was steadily thinning and that meant they'd be moving sooner than later. As much as he appreciated someone looking after his aches, as much as he might wish this peaceful moment to remain a while longer, the growing light and the visibility weren't going to permit it.

It wasn't overly long before he could see a sufficient distance to call their forced lull over. They took the time to dismantle the door and re-salvage the wire. When they were done, she asked if he wanted to keep the heat pack on. Wishful thinking said yes, but it was too restrictive. She deactivated it and put it away giving his shoulder just enough of a rub to loosen the tightness. Once that was done, there was nothing left to keep them. Coulter emerged reluctantly knowing she was leaving their sturdy shelter behind for the last time, but he didn't have to make any threats. Inside the only visible evidences of their presence were a mismatched pile of sticks and a collection of charred bones among the dead coals of their fire pit.

She looked around the misty woods and sighed. "This would be a beautiful place if it weren't so scary," she grumped, then arched her back and stretched.

Riddick watched her out of the corner of his eye as he marked their direction with the compass. "Ain't that bad," he retorted obliquely. "And the view's decent, considering."

Oblivious to his attention, her gaze slid up into the canopy. "So, I guess that weather you were worried about never materialized."

"Came through," Riddick answered. "Just didn't stay long."

"Oh. In that case," she smiled, "I'm really glad we found that tree."

"Yeah." Riddick pulled out the .44 and put it through a routine check before stuffing it back in the holster in his waistband. Then he fished in his pocket and pulled out her little mouse gun. "You mean what you said when we started about not slowing me down?" he asked as he put the little gun through a similar check in a fraction of the time it had taken her.

"Well, yeah," she retorted somewhat indignantly. "Of course."

"Good." He tossed her the little firearm watching her catch it and juggle it like a hot potato until she could confirm the safety was on. "Cause I've been taking it easy on you. Today we're going to see what you can do." He waited until she had slipped the little piece in her shoulder holster before adding, "Starting now."

He collected the refilled steri-bottle, activated it and packed it away as he walked, then he set his pace to cover ground. He heard her scramble to catch up, but after a few minutes she settled in and kept her place behind him. It wasn't the fastest _he_ could go - no way did he think she could go _that_ pace - but it was faster than he would have ever imagined this half sized secretary could keep that first day they started walking. Quite honestly, it was faster than he would expect of many men he knew. If she could maintain it half the day he'd be impressed. If she could keep it up 'til sundown he'd be amazed, and somewhere in-between now and then he truly hoped they'd cross a boundary and find themselves out of range... or at least complicating the hunt with a new player.

As the mists dried up, the girl's floral aura gained strength. As it had previously, her exertion level pushed its perimeter. That left Riddick with a problem. If he wanted to get out of her stench he'd have to put more space between them, but since a predator was more likely to pick off the weakest prey first it'd leave her hanging out as bait... again. It wasn't that using her that way troubled him... much... but there was certainly no way he could turn her into either boss if she was cat chow. That left him stuck firmly in the sub-dermal flower field, and thoughts of tracking down the biochemist who invented the crap took on a whole new appeal.

The other thing he found unsettling was the terrain was finally changing. It started gradually... the ups having more up to them, the downs dropping steeper, but the change was perceptible. Vegetation wise there wasn't a great deal to mark one piece of real estate from another in this place. The shape of leaves changed, maybe a few shades of green altered, a new flower showed up, but the profusion of plant life remained a norm. There were trees , as a rule vertical, but there were a growing numbers showing up horizontal. And there were ferns, moss, vines, bushes... more trees, more ferns, more moss, more vines and bushes... and growing evidence of rocks. Not huge differences but, as the elevation changes continued to increase, Riddick liked it less and less. It was easing into what he had been wanting the night before. Unfortunately, many of the things that spelled shelter at night could just as easily spell ambush in the day.

And then there was the whistling. It started up a few hours into the move and Riddick didn't think too much of it at first... some new kind of bird complaining about intruders in its territory... but as they continued he began to notice a pattern. First on one side... lost in the foliage somewhere off in the distance or behind them... and then a while later somewhere else. It wasn't a disagreeable sound. It was pleasant, not unlike the trill of a wooden flute running through a few random notes, but the more he heard it, the less he liked it. The fact that his neck hairs started stirring shortly after the bird started singing didn't help matters, and it only got worse the further they went. There were even times he swore he felt eyes on him although he could never nail down the source.

Nor did it seem he was the only one ill at ease. It was the difference between moderate woodland paranoia and extreme... a subtle continuation of the edge he'd sensed in Coulter that morning. Like the whistling, he hadn't noted it right off, but as the morning progressed it became obvious despite her attempts to hide it. The sound of her footsteps were sufficient to keep track of her, but he'd made a habit of doing visuals every once in awhile. It had proved an occasional source of amusement when he'd run into things he knew she'd react to... slug in a handhold, slime trail on a branch in the way, pile of shit on the trail. Who'd have guessed a dweeb in the woods could be fun. Now that habit was revealing she was feeling things too.

He was used to seeing her glancing warily at the greenery around her, but on one of his random checks behind he found her searching the brush with her hand upon her holster. As soon as she caught him looking, he saw fear and her hand dropped quick, but the action recalled the similar gesture earlier that morning. It caught his attention for a good number of reasons, not the least of which nagged whether it was even safe to leave her with a gun regardless of the size, but circumstances overruled that protest... for the time being. There were other explanations. He'd caught her by surprise the day before and had told her to remember she was packing a firearm. It could be that simple. She could simply be conditioning her brain to remember it was there, but it didn't feel like that was it entirely and watching her didn't dispel the notion.

The sunlight was pushing just past vertical when a piece of forest opened up enough to permit a water stop. The pace was feeling good, enough to keep his blood moving without tiring him out, and they were getting ground covered. The strength of her perfume confirmed that she was also exerting herself, but she was holding up surprisingly well. She drank, furtively watching the woods around them. "Somethin' got you spooked?" he finally asked.

She locked on him, suddenly frightened, like he'd caught her snitching rations. She shook her head quickly, but when his expression hardened, Coulter finally nodded. "OK, yeah, I guess. I don't know. It just feels like we're being watched or something."

Riddick nodded. There was definitely some wild in this girl. "You're not the only one," Riddick confirmed her statement, and she released the breath she'd been holding.

"I'm not imagining things? I'm not going crazy? I thought the woods were starting to get to me... that I..." She stopped suddenly and shook her head.

That why she was frightened to get caught looking? She thought she was going crazy? Finding another reason to worry that he'd dump her instead of sticking it through to collect his 'appreciation'?

"You ain't imaginin'. Something's checkin' us out, but I ain't overly concerned." Riddick didn't like lying. It rubbed him wrong, felt unnatural, but that hadn't stopped him from learning how. Like cheating, it occasionally served a purpose, and if he felt the need to do it, he was proficient. In this case, he figured a lie would do him a whole lot more good than the truth. He strongly doubted the creature following them was benign, but the girl was already stressing. If she found out she was being hunted again she might well lose it, and hysterical wouldn't help either of them. "It's just curious, us passing through its territory and all," he said easily. "We'll put it behind us before long." _Really hopin' anyway. _

She nodded, but she didn't relax as much as he'd hoped. _Yeah, good instincts. _

They set out again, only pausing when Riddick spotted a few tall straight saplings. Riddick weighed their value. Spears weren't his weapon of choice at the moment. They could be thrown one handed, although it was a whole body affair if you wanted penetration. Close up fighting, however, would require two hands. The other side of that coin was knowing an enemy was on his heels. His shoulder left him feeling vulnerable. Until he knew what they were up against he decided it couldn't hurt... much. Cutting _two_ wasn't his first choice either, but if it allayed suspicions... "Terrain's getting rougher. Want a stick?"

"That'd be great," she answered with a brief, if not genuine, smile. It lingered in his memory... the upturn of her lips... their slightly chapped fullness. It wasn't seductive. It wasn't nervous. It wasn't hiding something. It was sweet and honest, and she'd given it to _him_.

He found a straight young tree that would fit her hand and hacked off all the branches where it stood. A few good chops then took it off at the base and a few more took off the leafy top leaving a rough point on the end. He handed it off to her and she fiddled with it long enough to find the most comfortable grip then leaned on it gratefully. The pace might be wearing on her, but he probably wouldn't hear about it... not, he suspected, till she was ready to drop. That suited him fine. So long as she could keep up, he didn't _want_ to hear about it or anything else.

He cut a thicker one for himself then started off down the trail again finishing his as he walked. He spent an extra minute putting a few angles on his. When he was done, its tip didn't look all that much different than hers, but it was sharp enough to punch a good hole in your average animal hide. It was a limited use tool... real limited with his shoulder hurting the way it was - just making the thing had sent a flare up into his brain with every whack... but it was another weapon. To her it should have been just another walking stick, but at least once he caught her glancing at the forest... at him... at his "stick"... with a wary 'what-is-he-up-to' expression. _This girl picks up on things, _he mused. _Maybe Gallo wasn't so far off the mark pickin' her to run his errands. _

The opportunity to see his stalker came a couple hours later as the landscape became even more challenging. The rugged terrain and shallower soil gave the shorter squat trees an advantage, but that didn't stop the taller variety from trying. The result was more deadfall... sometimes a lot. It slowed their passage, but it didn't stop it. Riddick's first hint that he was somewhere he really didn't want to be came when he saw various game trails falling together into certain routes through certain areas, and by then it was too late. Concealed behind the forest growth, high sheer sided hills had risen up and gradually narrowed creating a natural funnel that hemmed the hikers in before they were truly aware of it. It was an effect only complicated by the downed trees. The right map would have prevented it, but by the time Riddick realized what the topography had done their choices were follow the paths or a multi klick back-track to try and find a way around. Riddick could only hope another terrain change was coming soon... that things would open up again... but they were at the mercy of the land. If he had been able to recover a topographical map from the ship... He snarled silently. Waste of time to think about wish-he-hads, but he didn't like it... on so many levels.

He also didn't like being predictable, but up and over the deadfalls was not an option. If he were alone... without a bum shoulder... maybe, but not with the girl in tow, free climber or not. That left them following trails through lazy mazes of deadfall every time things closed in, and it put Riddick in a state of high alert. If he were the predator doing the hunting... a big cat type predator with a good set of leaping and climbing limbs... he'd be liking this fine. And if he was a _smart_ predator, he'd be making plans to use it. Riddick didn't know how smart this cat was, but he'd yet to meet a hunter that wasn't canny.

They pushed on occasionally spotting other sorts of mobile DNA, be it birds, snails, or other creatures, until they reached a section where the tight terrain and a clutter of fallen trees put them on another communal trail. The trail wove in, around and under, at one point running parallel to an ancient fallen tree. It was a huge thing, but its poor growth location had brought it down before it's time. The giant had traded a vertical height around 90 plus meters for one nearer five. At the end of the huge tree one of the squatter variety spread over the fallen giant's naked roots, and Riddick suspected the broader tree's root system may have had something to do with its rival's demise.

Other scattered trees still shooting skyward kept the area relatively tight, but it was open travel along the giant's length as traffic through the funnel kept vegetation limited to things that grew tough and low. Other than that, there really wasn't much to mark this chunk of land from any other they'd passed through... save that this piece was completely still.

Riddick had heard some rodent tree huggers sounding alarms in the distance as they approached, but now this little corner of the forest had gone dead mouthed... almost as if it was holding its breath, and he didn't need his neck hairs to tell him why_. _Despite the clear passage, Riddick slowed his pace searching the environment around them with every sense he had. Three quarters of the way down they passed through a little "tunnel" created when a 'baby' tree a little over three meters thick had fallen and broken over the horizontal giant. The trail through the little tunnel was nearly worn to bare dirt, and, as they emerged on the other side, everything in Riddick screamed danger. He knew something was near by. He just needed to know _where_.

"Time for a break?" the girl asked hopefully behind him as he came to a near stop.

"Let you know in a minute," he answered distractedly scanning his surroundings. There was no shortage of tree trunks within pouncing distance of the trail ahead, but he already knew this thing could climb at least as well as he and height gave advantage. He found his gaze pulled to the broad tree at the end. As he ran his eyes over the branches overhanging the trail, he caught a flash of movement through an opening in the leaves and his neck hairs spasmed. The movement was fleeting, as fast as the wing of a flying bird through a shaft of sunlight, but Riddick locked on that spot letting his peripheral vision watch the rest. One minute, two minutes... Riddick remained frozen as the girl behind him stayed remarkably quiet... then it happened again. Whereas the first had been as quick as a bird flitting out of view, this was one flitting in. Only it wasn't a bird. A bird would never send the tingle on the back of his neck all the way down to the seventh cervical.

Through the tiny window formed by absent foliage, Riddick saw a slender shaft of green twitch into frame. Perhaps the thickness of his wrist, the short shaft was olive in color, banded by two rough stripes and terminating in a tuft of dingy white. A tail. As he watched the tail twitched out of sight again and Riddick recognized a cat's impatience. He'd found his stalker. It was actually a relief.

"Stay there a minute," he ordered over his shoulder, then moved a few paces up and out watching the play of the light through the tree above the tail. Even knowing where it was Riddick could only make out bits and pieces of the beast through the shifting foliage, and it was a wonder he could do that. The cat was an odd shade of green with darker stripes that made it near invisible among the leaves. It crouched on a thick branch overhanging the trail waiting to pounce on him as he passed beneath it, but Riddick had no intention of giving it the opportunity. Shoulder or no shoulder, practicality was the better part of valor.

He studied the vague shape, picking out what looked to be the faint curve of the haunch and the elbow of the front leg through the gaps in the leaf work. It was such a lousy target that were the spear his only distance weapon he wouldn't have risked the shot, but he had something much better than a spear. Riddick set himself square and, choosing his good arm for the task, pulled the .44 and coolly squeezed off a single round exactly where he thought the chest should be. It didn't matter if he was off. If it put the animal in view, he had five more rounds in chamber and that was four more than he should need.

The single shot was followed by an ear piercing screech as the creature reared up and fell backwards off the branch. A writhing mass of green striped 'cat' plummeted to the ground, twisting at the last instant to land on all _six_ of its feet and in that moment Riddick dropped the notion that the scientist of this planet hadn't decided to play God.

It wasn't the strangest creature Riddick had ever seen by far, but it ranked among them and certainly ranked among the more beautiful. The beast was heavily built with elements of both feline and ursine to its confirmation. Its broad forehead suggested intelligence and its thick double shoulders promised strength. Its belly was a pale, almost yellow green, while the coat was indeed a mottled olive further broken by darker stripes that carried onto its short half tail and down onto each of its six muscled legs... nor was six legs the creature's only strange feature. Not content to mix the species of unrelated animals together, some one had the bright idea to throw in avian. The thing had a _beak_, and despite the lilting trills that had followed them, this wasn't a song bird's beak. Sharp, curved, pointed... this was a flesh eater's beak, and it was bizarrely accented by a set of prominent canine teeth rising up on either side of the lower jaw. As the animal twisted and turned, snapping at the sharp pain 'biting' behind its first elbow, Riddick took a brief moment to appreciate the olive hunter's uniqueness before calmly pumped another round into thing's real chest.

The effect was instantaneous as the animal screeched again, jerking violently and its head whipped around to face the explosive sound that had accompanied the penetrating pain that bit at its flesh. It was animal intelligence that radiated from the amber orbs that glared at him, but intelligence was the operative word. Riddick saw it. The animal had formed the equation sound equals pain, and _he_ was the source of the sound. With a wincingly high scream of rage the beast charged, and Riddick stood unmoving as it came. With calm precision he squeezed off another round and the charging beast went down, plowing it's beak into the earth.

Riddick stared at the downed beast as he lowered the gun. For all its strangeness, it had been a beautiful animal. It irked him the pelt would be wasted, but like the snake, there was no time for tanning. _Wrong season for a good fur, anyways,_ Riddick sighed and started to turn intending to call the girl.

That's when he saw the olive hide ripple. In the next moment the creature heaved to its feet and shook its head before locking back on him. The olive forehead now bore a livid stripe just shy of center ripping upward, and it was quite evident the thing was suffering few, if any, ill effects from the wound as it snarled and dropped to a crouch.

Riddick had a bare moment to reassess the situation. _Skulls too thick to crack from the outside and it's either too stubborn to know it's dead yet or internal organs are rearranged_. That suddenly put the spear in question as well. Even if he could get it planted, there was no guarantee he could puncture anything immediately fatal, and without a crossbar there was nothing to keep the animal from coming up the shaft after him. In every battle there were decisions that, once made, could never be altered. Riddick made one now. He dropped the spear. _New strategy. Criticals in question. Go for structure._

As the animal's powerful haunches launched the creature toward him, Riddick calmly took aim. The .44 barked again and the creature's snarl became a screech as bones in its front shoulder shattered under the bullet's impact. The animal writhed and screamed, but airborne it had little opportunity to adjust it's trajectory as Riddick lunged in closer and dove beneath it paws. The beast was quick, reaching down to snap at his tumbling form as it overshot him, its beak scoring a line of fire down his shoulder as he rolled to his back. The animal's claws reached for him blindly, even as he sent a second slug up into the other front shoulder joint.

The cat came down from its leap two legs short and squalled as its shattered joints folded under its weight. The creature sprawled, tumbling gracelessly, nearly to the frail's feet, jarring her rudely out of her shock at its sudden appearance. Riddick couldn't really blame her when he heard her start to scream, and he was surprised to realize he felt for the girl... at least a little. _I might scream too if I were a forest phobic secretary with a "mogous" landing on my toes... again. What are the odds... twice in two forays?_

Riddick's tumble took him in the other direction, and he rolled back up on two feet as the 'cat' clawed its way up on four, ripping furrows in the earth. Its front legs dragged uselessly, throwing it off balance. The animal panted hard, drawing great gulps of air, its breath whistling with something like whines of pain, but the light in its eyes had gone from angry to crazed in the space of a single moment. Riddick was worried that the beast might decide the nearer, noisier target was preferable, but he needn't have worried. The animal disregarded the screaming girl completely as it fixated back on him.

Thing's suffering and I'm down to one bullet. Gotta end this quick and make it count.

But before he could pick his last shot, the 'cat' staggered trying to catch its balance, then adapted and rushed Riddick with more speed and surety than he ever expected. The shrieking beast barreled into him. He caught it high in the throat with his sore arm trying to redirect the snapping beak as its weight and momentum slammed him to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. Its front support missing, the animal was forced to bear its weight on its middle legs preventing it from clawing at him, but it gave the thing mass as it lashed down with its beak trying to open his throat or slash his arm. Riddick slammed the weight of the steel .44 against the side of its head, but he might as well have been hitting it with a fig. Three times the jagged curved beak narrowly missed ripping new holes in Riddick's skin, and Riddick knew he couldn't hold against the beast. Adrenaline was pumping, he was feeling no pain, but his shoulder was weak.

Suddenly the thing pulled up tearing its throat from his hand as it whistled shrilly, and that was all the opening Riddick needed. As the animal came down to attack again Riddick caught the underside of it's beak in his hand as he straight armed it, bracing its head up. It wasn't a position he could hold long, but it was all he needed. He pulled his legs up putting his knees against the thing's chest as he shoved the .44 straight up into the soft underside of the chin. "We're done here," he muttered and pulled the trigger. Contained by the ground and the beast, the retort was literally deafening, but Riddick had no cause to complain as half the breast's brains exited through the top of its skull. He felt the creature shudder and sag, and before its full weight could settle on him, Riddick pushed his legs against the collapsing carcass guiding the weight to the side. The limp cat complied, toppling sideways leaving Riddick pinned between two muscled legs.

A vibration of movement sent Riddick scrambling out from between them, and he stepped around to the beast's back - out of reach of claws and beak - as he watched the dead animal warily. Though his ears were ringing from their close proximity to the gunshot, he was well aware of the tree a few steps behind him limiting movement. He didn't believe, however, that it was going to be an issue. Even though his neck hairs weren't convinced it was dead, the twitches and jerks that moved the body appeared to be the last random firings of a twisted nervous system. He drew a deep breath - the first half of a sigh - of relief... of satisfaction... of regret at having to kill such a magnificent creature and then to let it all go to rot...

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden sense of fear and danger as he caught a flash of movement... as he heard something through the residual clamor in his ears. "...iddick!" It was a high shill cry that pieced the ringing in his ears, and with it was a low subsonic scream escalating into a shrieking roar. His gaze snapped up toward the girl, and he found his vision filled with 'cat'... this one bigger, angrier and _close_! The animal had launched itself from the top of the fallen tree trunk and there was no time to plan... only react. The gun was useless and Riddick dropped it as he met the beast, reaching around the exposed claws to catch an ankle in either hand. He wrenched one across the animal's face to fill the gaping beak as several hundred kilos of raging genetic deviant hurled him backwards... and fireworks exploded in his brain.

The tree that had been no issue became one. Riddick's vision went white with the impact of his skull against the trunk and a jolt that felt like electricity went through his limbs. It left them tingling like they'd gone to sleep... left his brain struggling to form a coherent thought. Instinct filled the gap, trying to keep the animal at arm's length... but that head crack had left his muscles numb, his shoulder was giving... It wasn't the paws in his hands that were the danger at the moment, or even the beak chewing on its own furry ankle. As his arms gave letting the animal lean in it was the middle limbs, claws extended, that reached in and raked across his chest.

Riddick roared, the pain and burn, clearing his head. A new shot of adrenaline surged through his limbs letting him push the animal back, but against its weight he knew the gain would be short lived... and so would he. Pinned... two hands against four legs and a beak... no weapons... no chance... The circumstances triggered rebellion. _No way I'm by being ghosted by some genetic screw up on a slam planet! _he snarled angrily. If he could get a knife out... without getting mauled...

POP!... POP! POP! POP!

He caught movement behind the beast... the frail... just barely off to the side... She wasn't screaming now. She'd lost her walking stick somewhere, but she held her little gun in both hands aimed at the 'cat'. If she scored, the animal never even noticed. And in the next moment Riddick added insane and guts to his mental description of the girl as she holstered her gun and charged the creature's backside yelling, "Get off him!" _Taking on this beast for me? Yeah. Definitely gutsy. Most definitely ditz. _She was pulling her purse over her head as she ran, and stopped mid-way as she saw something on the ground. He lost sight of her briefly as she ducked down, and when she came up again she had his spear.

That was the moment his shoulder gave. _NO! _he wanted to rage. _You ain't ghostin' me! _but his shout became a scream as the beast laid into him with both feet and the claws began ripping his chest to hamburger. Suddenly the 'cat's' screech jumped off the scale as it jerked violently and threw itself sideways. The animal's claws raked his chest one last time, dragging him to the side as it spun to face the frail, and he caught a glimpse of the spear, its end well bloodied.

Riddick hit the ground, his arm curled protectively around his chest as he watched the little drama playing out in front of him. The beast ripped the spear out of Coulter's hands with a single swipe, and the next paw should have ripped into the girl, but she was quick, already backpedaling putting a gap between them as she slipped the courier bag the rest of the way from her shoulder. The 'cat' came after her but she was even quicker about getting her bag swinging. She swung it with all her might, using weight and physics to her advantage, and as the animal stepped in there was a solid crack as the bag connected with the side of its head. The force of the blow caused the high tech fabric to go instantaneously solid around the contents. The frail's loose credits, clothes, book reader and whatever else suddenly had all the properties of a steel weight smashed alongside the animal's skull.

The thing let out a piecing shriek as its head snapped to one side, and then it whipped it back focused on Coulter. _We're dead_, Riddick thought desperately. He struggled to his hands and knees, searching for a weapon, until he heard the little pistol bark several times... and the 'cat's' angry screeching ceased.

It didn't die down. It didn't dwindle. It was just suddenly and abruptly _silent_!

Riddick looked up thinking to see the thing's mouth full of secretary but it wasn't. The beast lay sprawled on the ground in front of her, Denise staring at the animal, mousegun again held tightly in both hands. The little firearm was still aimed at the animal as if she expected it to get up again, and then she suddenly looked at him. Her panic thudded against him like a physical blow. It was etched on her face and radiating from her eyes. He held her gaze as he pushed himself to a sitting position revealing his bloody chest. The panic vanished, replaced with a palpable shock as her jaw dropped. She seemed stunned for a moment and then shouted "Mr. Riddick!" as she began to rush toward him.

"Med-kit…" he commanded. "My bag…" He gestured and realized her course had already altered. Her weapon was holstered by the time she reached the duffle. He pushed himself back against the tree and looked tentatively at the jagged mess the thing made of his chest as she ripped into the bag. At least twenty slashes, some pretty deep, and as he felt his head his hand came away bright with blood. He was a mess. He closed his eyes and let his head lean back against the tree, but regretted it immediately. He must have cracked it pretty hard 'cause he was feeling strange - hot, dizzy, light was hurting his eyes making it hard to see, the his skin on his face was tingling... He hoped this damn frail wasn't going to faint on him. He might need an extra pair of hands before this was over.

"Got it!" He glanced over as she exclaimed triumphantly holding up the med-kit. She then grabbed a bottle of water, and raced to his side falling to her knees beside him.

"Gimme the Dar-Gen," he ordered.

"No. Not yet. We've got to clean these wounds before we seal them," she countered with surprising conviction as her hand reached toward his forehead. "Damn. You're sweating up a storm. Those were...," she started in, but he cut her off as he slapped her hand away.

"Don't argue, girl," Riddick snarled, as annoyed by his light-headedness as he was by this ditzy secretary's sudden rebellion, however good intentioned. "Just give me the damn Dar-Gen."

She glanced at him hesitantly, as if unsure what to do, then moved quickly, setting the med-kit down opposite him and assembling the device in the box with fluid sureness. When she was done she slapped it into his hand before he could see it, and as the device made contact he heard a brief hiss as a dull sting bit his palm. She jerked back and stared at him, full fledged panic back in her eyes.

"That... was _not_... the Dar-Gen." he growled. "What was in that hypo?" but he knew the answer before she could say anything as he felt a familiar curtain of darkness rushing toward his brain. _Scratch one Siestinal, _he thought in the brief moments before the darkness claimed him. _ I'm gonna kill he..._

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**-oOo-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**NotAfraidToLive** - You're welcome. I hope you enjoyed it.

**Starnyx** - Thanks! I'm so glad you're enjoying the story too. I'm having fun writing it and I'm learning in the process, so double thanks! Hope you continue to enjoy it :o).

**Tiberius T.** - Thanks Tiberius! I really appreciate the compliment. Soon is a subjective word - LOL - but I have every hope of getting Turn About done... at least before any of my others. It's the closest to completion... maybe another chapter or three. Reviews are a great motivator. Thanks, again.

**Anna's pastime** - No complaints! I've kept you waiting even longer, and your reviews are certainly worth waiting for! They make my day! (So many exclamation points - LOL - my English teacher would have a heart attack, but I mean every one of them. I truly appreciate the time you take to read and then _write_. It's a real blessing! :o). I certainly hope I continue to keep your disappointment at bay :oD.

**beautifulmess2005** - Thanks! I'm glad you like the way I'm depicting Riddick. Denise is not the sort of person he usually hangs out with so it's interesting trying to figure out how he's going to react to her. I'm having fun :o). Sorry the space between updates runs a little long, but I do have every intention of finishing. Thanks so much for the review. They are a GREAT encouragement.

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**MY CONTINUING PROMISE:**  
As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.  
The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("only" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between 4 stories, 3 kids, (2 six and under), 1 husband and the life that contains them all and more, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.

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	12. Chapter 12: Even Then

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 12**

**Even Then**

**Acknowledgements: **Shaden, remember a few chapters (and a short eon) ago when you commented Turn About would be a perfect opportunity to reveal more of the history I've created for Riddick... well, this is your chapter. Thanks for the supreme suggestion! And my continuing thanks to Starnyx, of course, for her patient and persistent grammar patrol and savvy critique.

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Riddick opened his eyes slowly. It was dark, but the faint flicker of a fire cast a muted golden light over the uneven surface of his location. His last memory was sitting with his back to a tree... but he wasn't there now. He was horizontal, wrapped in a glittery emergency blanket and staring at the backside of leaves pressed against a thin mesh over a wooden frame. The air around him reeked with an overpowering flowery stench that hung in the air like a miasma. Beneath that there were subtler notes he couldn't quite read, but the blend was familiar. Prompted by the realization, his memory stretched a bit further to the world going dark again... to the loaded end of a hypo slapped in his hand... to the one who did it... _Coulter!_ He turned his head from the leaf wall to find her sitting beside him near the 'entrance' of the shelter with a fire outside, her knees pulled up under her chin, arms wrapped tightly around them as she stared through the netting. At his movement she turned to look at him, her expression haunted, but as soon as she realized he was awake it transformed before his eyes.

"Mr. Riddick, thank God," she exclaimed breathlessly. Her entire posture shifted as her arms fell away, and her knees quickly dropped to the side to parallel the ground. "I was so frightened. How do you feel?"

Riddick stared at her a moment wondering if he should kill her now or when his head stopped throbbing. "Like hell," he muttered, surprised to find a dull ache in his jaw as he spoke. He didn't remember getting hit there. He struggled to raise himself up on one elbow, and Denise unconsciously shifted back as far as the netting would allow as he glared at her. He reached up to gingerly touch to the back of his head. His skull was intact, but the skin was tender - recently healed. Under snuggly wrapped bandages, about half of his chest felt likewise, while the rest ached with the sharp pain of newly glued wounds. "That was some stupid stunt you pulled back there. You want to give me one reason why I shouldn't ghost you right now."

She froze, staring at him with that bird-in-snake-gaze look again, fearful to meet his eyes, but even more afraid to look away. "Please, ,I'msorry," she pleaded, "Iknewwhatwouldhappen...," Her words were rushing together as she tried to explain before he decided to carry out his threat, but his aching brain managed to pry the syllables apart. "I knew what would happen if you sealed those wounds before they'd been cleaned. Those were Gryphyian Fever Cats! They were in a documentary I saw in a zoo about mythic beasts created through genetic manipulation. Male Fever Cats have an oil gland by their claws that they use for marking their territory. It's poisonous to other mammals, and you'd been clawed so badly…."

She was barely taking a moment to breathe. "The way you were sweating, the way your eyes were dilating; I knew it was the male that mauled you. I couldn't let you seal those wounds up with so much poison inside. Even if it didn't kill you outright, it would have most certainly made you very ill, and they probably would have festered badly." She shuddered. "The Dar-Gen wouldn't have had enough juice to seal you up twice. It didn't even have enough to seal you up once, so who knows how long it would have been before you could travel. I don't even want to think about it. I need you. I won't leave this place without you." An animal screamed in the darkness and she jumped fearfully. Her first instinct was to shift toward him, then just as suddenly she pulled back, terrified. Her expression clearly wondered if she might be safer outside in the forest than she was in the shelter with him.

"I ain't been to a zoo...," he commented less threateningly and the mention of the place tugged at his memory like a pass code accessing a restricted file... Life had been hell... was hell... for as long as he could remember, and it had started early, but he _had_ been to a zoo... once. He'd been adopted, which for a baby found abandoned half dead in a trash can seemed a good thing, but good things didn't last long in his life. They'd gone someplace where the stars were different and both of his adoptive parents had been killed by a drunk driver. With no recorded kin that could take him he was left a ward of the system – a lousy thing to be in that little corner of the galaxy. Even worse when he earned the enmity of a crooked case worker. He had knocked the man on his ass in front of the whole funeral party as the "gentleman" tried to politely drag Riddick's almost three year old butt away from the last image he'd ever see of his mom and dad... A mom and dad he desperately missed and was just beginning to understand weren't coming home again.

So began a long string of new "families", one much like the other. The pain didn't change, only the faces... and the greater Riddick's rage and rebellion grew, the harder he became to handle. It got so that he knew the judges in juvenile court longer than any one "family," but no one stepped in. No one intervened. No one really gave a damn.

There had been one exception. A few months shy of Riddick's 6th birthday his case worker had an accident that got the man weeks in the hospital and an extended leave of absence. It was while he was out of action that Riddick's current "family" decided the cash wasn't worth the grief and they'd had enough of the monster. His temp worker had been a spunky young red head with a ready smile not too far off from Denise in build and profile. _Wonder if that played some into my inclination to save Coulter from her tube_, he mused_._. This gal placed him with a family –- a mom, dad, and three other kids, two of them system kids like him –- and he soon found out this family was different from the others.

The first thing he found out was they were just a little whacked in the head. They talked about God like He was a personal friend, and you'd have thought His Son was living with them too. Riddick certainly never saw Him, but that delusion kinda screwed things up for him.

Riddick had gone in with a plan to raise hell. He had learned quick in his few short years that he was leftover trash from somebody else's family, and he could neither expect nor deserved any affection. He'd learned the best way to protect himself was to beat them to the punch, sometimes literally. It was a simple defense - he couldn't choose his enemy or the terrain, but he could certainly start the war. That way he knew what to expect. That way, when nobody cared, he didn't get disappointed... he didn't get hurt, at least not emotionally.

That had been the plan, but it hadn't mattered how foul his mouth was or how sullen his attitude, this mom and dad didn't scream or curse or hit. That's not to say they let him get away with stuff – they drew their boundaries clear and expected him to stay in 'em, but when he didn't, things happened to him the same as things happened to the other kids - no harsher; no leaner. They didn't play favorites.

And there was something else about this mom that was way off kilter. She wanted to _do_ things... she wanted to hug him, tuck him in at night, read him stories, make him cookies, be... _nice_. He was just sure they were messing with his head... setting him up so they could do something bad... really hurt him... but then one night after he'd been there a month he overheard something.

It had been a bad day. Not for him - his day had gone just as planned - but for them. Riddick had picked a fight with the boy closest to his age and, despite the boy being his elder by two years, Riddick had finished the fight too. While the mom took the boy to the hospital to get his face fused back together, the dad tried - futilely - to make Riddick realize what he'd done was wrong. Wrong for them maybe, but for Riddick it was basic self preservation.

Riddick was just sure something like that would put him on their blacklist - put things back on ground he understood - but then the strangest thing had happened. After the mom was back and everyone was supposed to be asleep, Riddick heard voices. He snuck out of his room to see if he'd finally pushed the limit... to listen in when they made the call to get rid of him... but that's not what he heard. Instead he heard the mom crying... not for the boy he'd trounced; she was crying for _HIM_! She was so _sad_ that he felt the only way he could protect himself was to make people hate him, and she was _angry_ that anyone had ever let _him_ be hurt, and she was _heart-broken_ that he couldn't see that they really _wanted_ to help. The dad defended Riddick's actions like he'd been scouting in Riddick's head, and told the mom to give the boy more time.

They weren't sending him on. They weren't messing with him. They really _did_ care.

He went back to his bed - a _real_ bed; not some pile of blankets in a corner - and spent the rest of the night thinking. When morning came he went downstairs to the mom and apologized. Things weren't fixed - old habits were hard to kill - but it got better. When his sixth birthday came around, because he didn't have friends to invite to a party the way the other kids did, they took him to a zoo... _just_ him.

That had been an incredible day, and as they rushed from exhibit to exhibit viewing creatures from all over the galaxy, as the mom and dad marveled with him and bought him treats and even as they let him pick out a cybernetic winged snake they said was _his_, there was nothing that made more of an impression on Riddick than the fact that no one looked at them twice. One stranger had even complimented the dad on his "strapping son," and the dad _hadn't_ corrected the man. Instead he'd simply said "thank you," and put his hand on Riddick's shoulder like he really did care... as if he really was proud of him... it was like he really mattered. It was a good feeling. It was that day that finally reached deep enough to touch a seed planted years before... a seed so crushed and buried by abuse and hate that the source had become a distant dream by contrast. But the seed had never died and these people... this day gave it the strength to fight again. He _wasn't_ some abnormal mutation. He _wasn't_ a monster. He was like the other kids, and it was like they were a real family. Amid all the enclosures, Riddick's heart found freedom.

Even then it had seemed too good to be true. Even then there was a part of him that had wondered if it could be real. After running into Joshua Jacobson and Daria and seeing how someone really _could_ care about another man's kid enough to call them their own, he had an inkling it had been the Riddicks that planted that seed. But it was this mom, this dad, that made it live again... that made him realize he wasn't what he'd been told he was... that he was a some-_one__, not_ a some-_thing_.

It was a weighty revelation to be grasped by such a young mind after all the crap it'd been fed, but grasp it he did... grasped it, latched on to it, possessed it and buried it in his core. On that day he found his defense against the world. What he told himself he was might not be entirely accurate either, but it was what he was going to hold on to. He didn't need stupid idiots that didn't give a damn to tell him what he was anymore. He wasn't going to let assholes tell him what to become or what to do. He knew what the galaxy thought he was... most of it anyway... but that didn't mean he had to think it too.

That realization would eventually become a barrier between himself and humanity. It would eventually get condensed to not needing _anybody_, but back then it turned out to be the only thing he got to keep from his stay with that family and it had been enough. It was only who _he_ thought he was that really mattered, and anybody that wanted him to listen to what they thought would have to _earn_ the privilege.

There had been few enough of those since then.

Four months later his original case worker showed up at the door, and it quickly became evident that he intended to take Riddick with him. The mom asked Riddick to please go to his room for a little while, and he sat on his bed thinking again as a discussion escalated down the hall. His grades were up... displays of violent behavior were down... why couldn't the man see that this was a good place for him, but Riddick knew it wasn't a matter of what was good for him. This case worker hated Riddick. Riddick knew it was _because_ this place was good for him that the man didn't want him to stay - that, and because this mom and dad weren't going to share their support money. Every argument the mom and dad made was met with a technicality, and as the discussion continued the technicalities became threats. When silence finally fell upon the house, Riddick knew who had won. The mom came to his door, her face twisted and tear streaked, and she fell to her knees to pull him into an embrace, but he couldn't return it.

Betrayed again. His heart closed down hard... harder than before. His new wall came up, strong and impenetrable, and it had him bunking in full-time Juvie-Dee not long after he turned seven...

But he remembered the zoo.

"Ain't been to a zoo..." he repeated more softly, "...for a long time." His mind gave a definition to 'long' no dictionary contained; different universe, different time, different life, and he quickly felt uncomfortable with a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with cat scratches. "So where'd you learn to seal wounds like this?" he glanced down at the tightness _around_ his chest grateful for a distraction. Professional job of bandaging, and her doing it to him couldn't have been easy. "You said you took a class?"

"First Aid classes... basic Emergency Med-Tech," she answered uncertainly.

He grunted his approval then he glanced out beyond the netting and found sufficient reason to put memory lane behind him completely. They were in the same location. The carcasses of both beasts were still lying where they'd fallen. "Not a good place to camp, Coulter."

"Yeah, I know, scavengers, but there was no way I was going to drag any of you anywhere. Do you have any idea how much you weigh?" Her voice became plaintive. "I did the best I could."

"And that was?" He added a little more energy to his effort and gained a sitting position.

"You said most scavengers are drawn by scent, so…" She suddenly seemed embarrassed. "Well… you were complaining about my perfume."

"Uh-huh?" he pushed when she faltered.

"I... I rolled on the things," she finally snapped. "I'd worked up a sweat doing all this by myself so I rolled on them... made them smell like a damn hot house full of flowers".

Her solution was so novel and unexpected that Riddick actually laughed, then caught himself as his wounds warned against the levity.

"Now really, Mr. Riddick, it's not funny," she exclaimed stretching out her top so he could see a few uneven splotches of blood on the fabric, "Do you know how much this outfit cost?" And that only made him laugh harder. He groaned as his chest ached and his head throbbed.

"Alright, Coulter, you done good," he chuckled, rubbing his head. "Don't know how many people would've thought of that." His impression of her went up another notch. Her flowers might not cover the blood, but it might well confuse the scent. Might not, but it was a novel solution.

"Really, Mr. Riddick, you think so?" She stopped pouting as she caught his praise.

"Yeah, and no more Mister. Just call me Riddick." Her eyes widened as if he had just handed her a metal. "So what happened?" he asked curiously. "Last part of the fight I remember was you whacking the cat with your bag. How'd you kill the thing?"

He pulled a water bottle and took a drink as a remembrance of her fear came back to haunt her face and she shuddered. "I'm not entirely sure," she admitted sheepishly. "I was so scared when it came after me I thought I was going to pee myself. I remember pulling my pistol again..." She drew her gun unconsciously reenacting the event. "...tried to aim..." She aimed it at Riddick as if he were the cat. "...then I must have closed my eyes and started shooting..." She closed her eyes, and Riddick reacted, his breath catching painfully as he ducked below the barrel and his hand pushed her aim into the roof. She didn't fire and had the wits to look chagrined at her stupidity. She hastily put the weapon away. "At least I think I closed my eyes," she added softly. "I'm not sure. It's all a blank... I started shooting, then the next thing I knew the screeching had stopped, and I'm looking at the thing lying on the ground."

Riddick rolled his eyes. So much for being impressed.

"I guess we're even then," she added quietly after a moment.

"What?" he returned sharply.

"I mean you saved my life, now I saved yours. Really, that's not the kind of thing you'd expect a city girl like me to get to do for a guy like Richard B. Riddick. What are the odds that I'd get to return a favor like that?"

"My hero," he muttered, feeling a wave of weariness wash over him. He knew from experience what that meant. His brain still needed time to heal from its introduction to the tree, and he knew what would likely happen if he didn't get it. He just hoped a good night's rest would do the trick and that Coulter wouldn't let them get killed while he got it. He took another drink and then capped up the bottle. A brief shake confirmed the quantity as he put it away. Third left. He wondered what condition the others were in. They might be hurting tomorrow, but that was neither here nor there at the moment. Right now all he wanted was some shuteye. "Fine, you and your lucky little pistola can keep watch. My heads hurts, and I need to do some heavy sleeping. Don't wake me up unless something's tryin' to eat us." With that he lay back down and in a matter of minutes he was asleep.

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The night was, evidently, uneventful. Leastways nothing happened that panicked Coulter into waking him up. He slept hard through the night, through the heavy morning fog and didn't begin to rouse until the light was pushing color back into the ferns and ground cover. Except for the lighting, the view inside the hut, however, had changed very little. Coulter remained beside him by the opening, although she now sat cross-legged, her head fallen forward over her little gun which she now held cradled in her lap. For a moment Riddick was certain she was asleep, but he hadn't more than shifted his arm when her head came up and she looked at him. There was a new edge to her... worn, weary, maybe a little haggard, but there was no surprise. If anything there was relief. _She actually manage to pull off an all nighter? _But it made sense when you factored in her fear of things that went bump in the trees.

"You're awake," she murmured redundantly, and she stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she slipped her little mousegun back in its holster. "You slept in awfully late. I was beginning to worry."

Riddick dragged the emergency blanket off completely, feeling the movement through his chest like a dull remembrance of getting clawed. He shifted, warily eyeing the roof as he pulled himself up. There was barely enough room to sit upright at the shelter's highest point. He took up a cross-legged position under it and put his back to a familiar piece of tree as he took silent inventory of the sensations the movement caused. "Yeah. That crack on the skull needed more down time." The shoulder was still an issue, but the head was feeling better, and while the lacerations ached, they weren't nearly as bad as he expected they'd be. He'd have guessed she'd given him a pain killer, except there was none of the fogginess or whacked out thoughts he'd come to associate with them. All in all, he figured he was doing pretty good for a man who was nearly 'cat' meat.

"So how do you feel now?"

"Workable. Know better when I get moving."

She nodded, stifling a yawn, and held out a ration bar. "Hungry?"

Riddick took the bar with a grunt. "Got water?"

She pulled the bottle he'd drunk from the night before and rocked it, judging the slosh of the contents. She frowned as she handed it to him and pulled her own, handing him that as well. "Not much. This is it."

Hers was half full. Between the two, even if he drank sparingly - the ration bars required at least 250 ml or they'd cause cramps - "not much" was an overstatement. As he ate she stirred herself and pulled the discarded emergency blanket to her. After a deep breath, she forced herself to crawl outside the shelter... alone_. _"The cats are dead," he heard her tell herself. "The cats are dead. We're leaving soon." She searched the area hard, and then put her back to the shelter and began the touchy process of refolding the uncooperative material. She made it look relatively easy. When she was done, she replaced it in the duffle and starting to pull the fire apart. It took Riddick a moment to put it together, but he realized she was breaking camp. No complaining. No fuss. She'd thought he'd said it was time to 'get moving,' and she was taking it upon herself to make it happen. Whatever he'd thought of her to begin with, she was proving herself to be something else. She had her problems, but it was becoming plain that weak, lazy and cowardly weren't among them. She'd been scared, but she'd pulled it together when the chips came down and now was willing to push through without sleep.

Short on water... bunking with carcasses... There were reasons to push through, but Riddick wasn't quite ready. Heads were touchy business, and his chest was rightfully sore. He wanted to get a feel for where he was, condition wise, and - with any luck - see if there was a water source nearby. He strongly doubted Coulter had gone looking. He put the bar back in the duffle and, after a single swallow of water, tucked the bottles on top before crawling out. He glanced over the shelter. It was a little thin in places and the support lattice was wider than he liked, but she'd been stretching supplies to rig a little more cover this time around. She'd taken the lean-to design he'd first shown her and adapted it to an A-frame using the tree he'd been leaning against after the fight as support and a block for the back door. Rain would have brought out some flaws, but it wasn't a half bad job, considering. Twice the work, but easier than trying to transport an unconscious man weighing ninety plus kilos any distance. He couldn't fault her. She'd done what she could with what she had. She deserved some consideration since it served his purposes anyways.

"We're not leavin' quite yet," he announced.

"We're not? But you said..." She glanced at the dead cats.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I did, but we need water. If nothing's shown up for breakfast yet I suspect we can squeeze a couple more hours out if we keep some smoke in the air. You can grab forty winks while I see if there is some sort of H2O nearby."

She looked dubious. "If you think it's wise..." She cast a wary... but weary... glance around her.

"You'll be safe enough. I ain't goin' far." Riddick assured. Then a smile twitched at the edges of his lips. "But if I'm wrong you'll be the first to know, and I'm sure I'll be the first to hear about it... one way or another."

She stared at him, irritation and annoyance making her eyes sharp. "You think you're being funny," she muttered darkly, "but you're not." Anything else she might have said was overridden by a yawn, but instead of picking up where she left off when it was over, she shrugged. "But you're in charge, and I _am_ tired." With that she dropped to her knees and crawled back in the shelter. A moment later the duffle was shoved through the netting with the water bottles still on top. He heard some movement as she made herself comfortable, and then the interior went quiet.

Riddick took a few minutes to salvage the fire noting the decent job she'd done with the fire ring. Not that that was an overly difficult job, even considering she had managed to build the fire and keep it burning all night. The fact was nothing he'd taught her was overly difficult... laborious, perhaps, but not difficult. He wondered how she'd take to something a bit more challenging like starting a fire _without_ a firebug. Might be something to kill some time with. He finished up throwing the last of her wood on the fire. It was definitely an amateur's selection. Some of the pieces were a little green, but for his purposes now a little extra smoke wasn't necessarily a bad thing, and there were enough dry pieces to keep it burning. When he was done he drew the netting aside to look in on her. The girl was curled up in the back of the shelter using her bag for a pillow and, to all appearances, was already fast asleep.

"Then again, if I'm wrong," he chuckled softly to himself, "you may just sleep right through it."

Riddick found an open spot where he could stretch his legs and went through an easy kata testing his limitations. His head suggested not pushing things while the lacerations and his shoulder absolutely forbid him to consider _any_ fights in the near future. Actually they preferred he skip all upper body movement in its entirety, but they weren't hurting nearly as badly as he expected. The only thing he couldn't account for was a tender cheek and jaw. It was nothing he couldn't ignore safely, but it bothered him he couldn't remember where it came from. All things considered, however, he had no complaints.

Muscles loosened up, head throbbing only slightly, Riddick surveyed the terrain hoping to see some sign of water. When nothing jumped out at him, he plotted a walk around the perimeter that would serve two purposes. Outside Coulter's floral influence he might be able to nail down water by smell. Likewise, he should be able to find out if any scavengers were nosing around... find out sooner than later if staying a bit longer was a good idea or not, and maybe answer a few curiosities as well. The first thing he found was her latrine. It wasn't hard, not once he was out of her perfume bubble, and he couldn't fault her technique, just her location. Way too close to camp, but understandable considering.

He took his time, not wanting to push things right off. The little valley was narrow and cluttered eliminating the possibility of an easy walk, but it quickly became evident that between the porous rocks and loamy soil, there was little chance of finding much water gathered in one place, either standing or flowing. It was a rainforest. The place was lousy with water, but that didn't mean it was immediately accessible. Nor were they going to take the time to do any long drawn out processes like drain vines here. Long processes plus scavengers were a bad mix. That meant they'd be moving before long. The sign on the trails showed the native populace was pretty stirred up at the moment. Tracks led toward their "camp" but then doubled back as soon as they got within scent range. He didn't know if it was the cats, the unnatural flowers, the man smell, the smoke & fire or some blend of the four that was sending them back, but he could see a few had come pretty close. His guess was that it depended on which way the breeze was blowing. Coulter had probably had an interesting evening considering how every little sound set her off.

Thankfully, the tracks that had the look of potential scavengers weren't large ones and were traveling singly... so far. They seemed as put off by the abnormalities as the rest, but he knew it was short term. The trails through the valley meant main routes to and from things the animals considered critical... food, water, hunting grounds. That meant they'd only be put off so long. When they started getting desperate, things would start to get dangerous, but he expected to be gone by then. If what was keeping them chary would hold for just a couple hours longer, he'd consider it good.

He made his way back and stopped to look over the carcass of the 'cat' Coulter had killed. Several bloody spots on its back were evidence that the girl's first failed attempt to distract the beast hadn't gone wide, and he counted himself lucky a stray bullet hadn't caught him. The front end of the creature, however, made him wonder just how much luck might have actually been involved. If Coulter hadn't managed to kill the thing, it would have suffered a slow death because her high tech purse had done a number on its face... one of its canines had snapped at the base and the lower half of the beak was so grossly misaligned it was obvious the jaw was broken...

But she _had_ killed it.

The way of it was also obvious, but Riddick wanted to know more than just the 'way'. He crouched in front of the dead animal and studied it. Coulter had a small caliber gun, and the wounds hadn't had much time to bleed. He had a recollection of three shots when he'd been down on his knees searching for a weapon... and after a few minutes he found all three. It was a linear trail working its way toward a bull's-eye, or, in this case, perhaps a more accurate term would be a 'cats-eye'.

The first shot was buried in the beast's shoulder, the next in its cheek and it was the last one that took the animal out... straight through the eye into the brain. _Are we talkin' luck? _She said she didn't even remember doing it. _Instincts kick in? _Two misses; one kill but she'd kept them all on the target. _That practice Gallo insisted on paying off? _And she'd managed to nail the only shot that'd work short of stuffing the gun in the thing's ear or up its soft palate_... _He had to at least consider the possibility she could shoot better than she claimed, and if that was the case, was it understatement or outright lie?

So, it had to be asked. Was she who she said to was? Were there any other situations that might place a girl carrying a small bore with a concealer holster in a merc crew's possession? He could think of one or two. More to the point, did any of them make her a threat to _him_? The fact that she'd been in a lock down tube like himself lent itself to the idea that there was no love lost between her and the merc hunters, and that Jenner had thought her worth keeping for one reason or another. If there had been information on her in the ship's data banks at anytime, it had been destroyed with most everything else of value on Jenner's ship. Riddick knew he'd been lucky to recover what he had. So what did he know?

A lot if she'd been telling the truth. Little to nothing if she'd been lying. There was no way to check her out, but the tales she told had a _real_ ring to them... incidental little details that didn't necessarily need to be there like Boravine eggs, and buffalo steaks from Wyoming on birthdays... idiosyncrasies a rich guy like Gallo could really have. Someone like Gallo would also most certainly have touchy jobs that needed running, and the longer she was out of the malfunctioning cryo tube, the more he was starting to see what a man like that might have seen in the girl to start with... guts, tenacity, adaptability, able to function under pressure. She'd started off shaky, but when push had come to shove, she'd kicked it in - all in an inoffensive, if not pretty little package. That much was a good fit.

Her fear of him - when she thought she had reason - and the woods also seemed real enough. He could practically _feel_ it every time something unexpected happened. It nearly bled through her eyes. That wasn't something he remembered experiencing before... but then he couldn't remember having so much one-on-one time with another person before either. He stood, shaking his head, and ran his hand over his stubbled skull ignoring the twinge in his chest where it was glued. The one thing he knew for certain was how close they'd both come to getting ghosted by his bloody boot. He set a new level of caution against getting vindictive in his mind.

He made his way back to the fire rubbing his hand thoughtfully over his head again. He'd been close to needing a shave when Jenner grabbed him. With the crash it hadn't exactly been a priority, but since he had the time... He settled himself near the lean-to and dragged the duffle over, pulling out the top layer of goods. He had planned for the possibility - a can of pressurized lube from the toolbox. The way he figured the oil spray had multiple uses. If they got hit by a good rain it might help get a fire started, boost the water resistance of their boots or even play blow torch if there was a need. For his purposes it wasn't his first choice, but it was better than nothing. He sprayed a palmful of the foamy stuff watching as the roiling bubbles quickly dispersed leaving a thin creamy gel in his hand. He slicked it back over the last few day's growth feeling the twinges grow a little sharper with increased movement. _Maybe this wasn't such a bright idea. _If he wasn't careful, he'd tear wounds open.

He was almost surprised when the thought of getting the girl's help crossed his mind. It was quickly dismissed. She may have saved his life, but that didn't mean he felt comfortable letting her behind him with a _knife_! Presuming she even knew how.

He worked carefully, trying not to stress his injuries as he dragged the smaller of his blades over the greasy surface and flicked the accumulation off into the fire. The little drops of oil and hair snapped and flared adding a new dimension to the scents freaking out the wildlife... hopefully one that would keep them thinking twice just a while longer. With his chest sending out rip warnings it was a slow, painfully tedious job. It definitely wasn't, he decided, the wisest course of action he could have chosen, but once started he was determined to complete it. When he was finally finished, it was a relief and the only task left was cleaning off what remained of the oil. He figured a wipe from the first aid kit would do the trick, if they had one to spare. He popped the lid and was surprised at what else he found... or rather what he didn't.

The first thing that struck him was how empty the box seemed. Granted, bandages were bulky. It took a lot to wrap a chest like his even when you were talking Spyder Wrap's fine synthetic spider gauze, but there was more than that missing... a lot more than he expected. He found a wipe - there weren't many left - and cleaned up. Then he started a serious inventory to see just what had been used. There wasn't much Clotto/spray left and only two staunch pads. Coulter didn't strike him as the wasteful type. Had he really been bleeding that bad?

As he explored further, he found his answers. There was no way to sort out the particulars. She'd used the bio-guide, but its batteries were totally depleted and without the recharger there was no way to recall the data it had stored away. The supplies that had been used, however, suggested things may have been dicey for awhile. The Dar-Gen was completely dead, and the derm-glue was three quarters gone. In fact the kit was down to nearly nothing in anything that had to do with bleeding wounds, but that wasn't all. In the compartment that held the hypo, there were several new holes, and each one said something... Two vials of Anti-All were missing. That meant an organic venom or poison. The girl had said as much when he woke up last night... something about oil on the male cat's claws being poisonous to mammals.

Anti-All's name was a little misleading. Anti-venom technology had taken a big leap back in the 21st century when a team of Earth Prime scientists learned how to make a single base anti-venom that treated the bites of nearly every venomous snake on their continent (1). That eventually led to Anti-All, a multi-species mix of base anti-venoms that covered most the poisonous animals on Earth Prime. That versatility made Anti-All a good choice for a "generic" anti-venom in med-kits since it was likely to work for any creatures engineered from these animals for other planets. But, despite sciences best efforts, there were still some venoms that just couldn't be countered. And then there was the issue of unnatural blends. It was a simple formula to a big problem... the more mixed up the DNA in the beast that nipped you, the higher the chance of getting a venom strain, all or in part, outside Anti-All's envelope. When that happened, you'd best hope your 'doctor' was equipped to handle it. Sometimes it was having local anti-venoms or the stuff to treat the damage the toxins did; sometimes it came down to having a way to keep the victim breathing until the venom lost effect.

It looked like they might've been dealing with something in the last category this time around if the vials missing were any indication. Either the reaction or the volume of toxin had made it serious. If the Anti-All had been all that was missing, he still would have figured things might have gotten pretty severe there for a while, but it wasn't.

There was a Spectracillen-V missing, but with cat scratches you'd expect an antibiotic. There was also a Clotto/internal missing. It was touchy stuff, so if it had been used, it meant he _had_ been bleeding... bad. Two bags of Gen-Hem blood substitute absent from the inventory backed up that theory and accounted for a whole steri-bottle of water. And there was Stabrafin missing. That meant he'd been riding a fine line. Stabrafin was a carefully blended cocktail of stimulants that didn't get used unless it was serious touch and go, if not actually gone. It could kill you if it wasn't... and Coulter'd used _two. _It made her use of the Siestinal a little more judicious. He hadn't exactly been interested in listening at the time, and she was right about the poison. No telling what would've happened if he'd sealed the wounds, but it wouldn't have been pretty.

It had been another bit of quick thinking on her part. He tossed the bio-guide and Dar-Gen, lightening the load, then closed the lid thoughtfully as he considered just what all Coulter had done. She'd actually pulled it off. Kept her head and pulled him through. And, even if she'd just been following the bio-guide's instructions, the tale told by the medicine was that she'd managed to save his life, not once, but twice_._.. first from the cat and then again from its poison. What were the odds, she'd asked. That was a good question. What _were_ the odds that someone would be able to do something like that for him... _would_ do something like that for him... _twice_! But she'd called them even. That was good enough for him.

Unfortunately, the results of the whole incident left their med-box short. Between the bio-guide and the Dar-Gen, she'd used up their most critical tech as well as most of the basics. That left the rules for the rest of the hike pretty simple... No more incidents. If someone got hurt, they'd be treating it the old fashioned way.

He shoved the med-kit back in the duffle and took inventory of the rest of their supplies, this time finding a little _more_ than he ought. The palm light was in there, but it didn't take much imagination to guess why or how. She must have filched it from his pocket when he was unconscious, but a quick inventory revealed they jewelry in the other pocket remained. There were more ration bars than he expected, and he found his tank top wadded up in a stiff ball in the bottom. He almost pitched it over with the dead equipment, then relented. It didn't weigh much and would work for tinder if nothing else. Likewise the little piece of netting he'd had the snake wrapped in. He hadn't even realized she'd kept it, but since she had, he left it. It was while he was reorganizing the gear, making sure things were where he wanted them and there was room for the big netting when they tore down, that he found something _new_. His knuckles brushed it... an object tucked in an end pocket that he didn't remember packing. The object was short and cylindrical... a little shorter and a little thicker than a butterfly knife folded. He finished his task, and then carefully pushed the bag around bringing the pocket in question in front of him.

The end pocket held a little commercial osmo-doser such as could be picked up in any pharmacy or grocery store. Preloaded with over-the-counter medicines and prescriptions, the little devices were capable of delivering measured doses of what ever they held to the user directly through the skin without needles. But Riddick had no idea what this one was loaded with. It wasn't something _he_ had packed, and there weren't any brand names on it... there wasn't _anything_. No indication of contents, no dosage instructions, no 'filled-at' location ... Other than some general wear and tear, the little doser was as anonymous as you could get, and Riddick felt a twitch in his gut as the best guess reason for such a nondescript delivery system reared its ugly head again... drugs?

How long had the little device been in there? Had it been in there yesterday morning when he'd caught her digging in the med-kit? Was the whole "I wanted to pack your shoulder" bit just a ruse to cover her getting in the duffle? She'd been in her purse the morning before. She'd had free reign of both since she knocked him out...

Another portion of his mind quietly suggested an alternate ending for the last thought... since she'd saved his life... but he couldn't help finishing what he'd been thinking. Was that, maybe, why she'd been so particularly uptight that first day? Why she'd been settling in the last couple? Not because she'd been recovering from the cryo malfunction, but because she'd been managing to get her fixes in... hiding them right under his nose? With that damn perfume there was no way for him to tell if her body chemistry was altering one way or another, but it still didn't fit. She really didn't _act_ like an addict. But he'd met functional drunks, and not all drugs affected people the same way. If it was meds, you'd think she would have said something, unless... Was she afraid he wouldn't believe her? He had come down pretty scary back at the ship. But if that was the case, why was the doser unlabeled?

He lifted the device to his nose trying to identify the scent left by the last use. He could almost make her scent, but, oddly, it seemed under another that smelled faintly like his own. It was hard to tell as both were pretty much overwhelmed by the clinical scents of the recently used drugs. It was a mix. He picked up at least one note he'd place as a narcotic, but there were others he couldn't identify. A designer drug? That wouldn't surprise him. As many places as this gal traveled, she might very well have found a drug he'd never heard of, and hopefully never would... well, unless he needed it. Drugs occasionally had their uses in someone else's bloodstream, but there was no way he was going to start messing with the stuff himself. He'd had more than enough at Altair.

He growled to himself as he recalled his second and most recent place of confinement. His records probably read Ribald S Correctional Facility... as if they would _ever_ keep someone like _him_ in a mere correctional facility. Rehabilitation for Richard B. Riddick? Yeah. Right. In actuality there was another place under Ribald... a research facility where test subjects were little more than numbers, and select prisoners filled the slots. Lifer. No chance of parole. No family. No visitors... He knew why he made their list. He'd already known some pain killers affected him funny... dulled more than he wanted them to or had side effects that came on more like street drugs affecting the way he thought... affecting the way he felt, but the "doctors" in the Altair Prison Network had had heydays with him.

Slotted for some Doctor's psyche project, what they did to him - what they did to all their lab rats - would have been criminal if it hadn't been authorized by the prison network itself, and he was one of the lucky ones. In Altair they'd kept pumping him with all sorts of chemical cocktails and asking him to draw pictures, to answer questions about his childhood, to explain why he'd done things... trying to get in his head... and the doctor kept murmuring over his notes like Riddick was the most fascinating thing since sliced bread. His system blew through some drugs, and he'd amused himself skewing their data by pretending to be affected and feeding them crap, but other drugs had taken him for some serious rides. Under one age regression "treatment" he'd evidently drawn them a blueprint of the entire prison and his planned escape route, but the idiots had been too sure of their security to take it seriously so his escape plan went forward. Good thing, because he wasn't given time to come up with a Plan B. He was a pet project right up until they decided he was too dangerous to keep with his brain intact. The day he cut fence - with extreme prejudice - was the day scheduled for his lobotomy. After that it took him near two weeks of serious pain and hard sweats to get clean.

Trouble was the "doctors" at Altair hadn't always told him what was in their cocktails, so he didn't know exactly which drugs would affect him how, or how much of the ones that did were drug interactions rather than the drugs themselves. At Sigma he'd learned by name a couple he needed to avoid, but after his stay at Altair he was a lot more leery of everything. He'd long ago decided pain tolerance was more a mind over flesh matter. That old cliché about 'that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' was tripe in his opinion. It only worked if you _made_ it happen. "That which doesn't kill you is only an obstacle" was more his personal philosophy, and if it was a person, they'd better watch the hell out. If he wasn't dead, wasn't nothing going to stop him... preferably keeping his wits and his body in working order in the process. Altair had come near screwing that up in more than one way. It wasn't going to happen again. That was his personal pledge to himself and part of it was avoiding chemicals unless they were absolutely necessary, and then only if the benefits outweighed the risks.

It didn't look like that was Coulter's philosophy, but did the doser hold drugs or something else? That was the real question. He wanted to get angry and confront her, but the other portion of his mind reminded him he owed the girl enough to give her the benefit of the doubt. He didn't have any solid answers, only suspicions. Oft times that was all he went on, but this was different. She wasn't going anywhere without him for the next few days. He slipped the little doser back into its pocket and closed it up. He could afford to wait and see.

When he was finished, he set the duffle aside and peeked in on the girl. She was still curled up in the back of the shelter, the purse scrunched up under her head, her far arm loosely wrapped around it. The strap lay across the floor, and he reached in to pull on it experimentally. At first it seemed she was sleeping too hard to notice, and he was able to ease the purse out from under her several centimeters. Then she murmured softly and reached up to pull it back before wrapping her other arm around it as well. Riddick chuckled. She was as protective about the bag asleep as she was awake. That was some deep programming. If protecting the contents ran as deep, Leone was going to have a real challenge on his hands.

And for the first time that thought didn't sit so well with him.

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**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**NOTE**

**THANKS:**

**beautifulmess2005 -** Thanks! I've had a lot of fun watching the relationship between them grow myself - LOL. While the plotline is pretty set, the dynamics pretty much happen as I write and its been interesting trying to figure how each would react in the different situations. Hope you continue to enjoy it.

**Nephilim Familiar -** Thank you SO much. I really appreciate it. Such high praise - I hope I can continue to 'amaze' you :o).

**Nelle07 -** Glad you are enjoying it - *GRIN* - Sorry about not making the soon part, but I hope you continue to enjoy it.

**Shaden -** I am so sorry! I really thought I'd have this chapter up sooner. GRRRR! I'm delighted you like the way things are developing, though. I know what you mean about wishing Riddick could get the girl once, Poor boy. It just doesn't seem fair. And I have to say, that even though I'm writing it, Denise sometimes surprises me. She's taken on a life of her own. Great to hear I managed to slip in something unexpected - haha - that's a writer's job right? Give the reader something unexpected now and again to keep things interesting. Hopefully I can keep it up to the end ;o).

**Anna's pastime -** Thanks! Was that 'whopper' size wise or punch wise - LOL? Maybe both? Turn About's chapters have definitely gotten longer, but hopefully not TOO long. Let me know if I am trying to cram too much in. Compared to a book, I think they are on the short side of average, but online is a different media. I really don't know what length people prefer online. Thanks for the compliments on the fight scene. I was hung up on it for so long. I'm glad you found it exciting! Seat edger :o) LOL! High praise to my ears :oD! Hopefully I've managed to keep things moving this chap as well, and I hope you continue to enjoy!

**Hades Daughter -** Thank you! I am so glad you have been enjoying it. Denise has been a fun character to develop and I hope I can keep things going to the conclusion. I definitely haven't abandoned any of my stories, but I must apologize for the interminable wait. I hope to get Turn About finished in the near future (relatively speaking) so I can focus on one of the others.

**Blade for Hire -** Thanks for coming back! Yes, I do know the feeling. Grammar and typos - yeah, I can believe it. Grammar has never been a real strong suit. Through Starnyx patient beta-ing, I've been improving slowly... I hope :o), but if you see something I'm doing consistently (especially in these latter chapters), feel free to point it out (and how to correct it). That way I can start watching for it. The typos? *SHAKES HER HEAD* I've got my word processor's "helps" on and I'll proofread ten times myself, and as soon as I post I'll find half a dozen. I can only hope they are not the sort that distract from the story. If they are, point them out to me... please. And finally, thank you so much for the characterization compliments. As a fanficer, I feel one of the highest compliments I can receive is that I've kept an individual "well characterized" and that my rounding out of the character is believable :o). Heh - 'A little healthy paranoia.' My children occasionally accuse me of that too, and don't even realize how often it has kept them out of a bind - *GRIN*.

**RESEARCH NOTES:**

1) Delving into anti-venom production, even as shallowly as I did, is fascinating AND scary. Did you know many of the places that go through the laborious process of make these critical life-saving antidotes have been or are shutting down? In February of 2009 the USA's last vials of Coral Snake anti-venom expired, and unless the government has approved getting it through Mexico, we don't have a source for more! Australia's main producer of anti-venoms is also in jeopardy according to my reading, and Australia has some of the deadliest spiders and snakes in the world, not to mention octopus and jellyfish! On the up side, who knows? "Generic" anti-venoms such as my Anti-All might be less fiction and more science in the future. Check this out... (replace '?'s with slashes and '-'s with periods) - www-newscientist-com?article?dn9277

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**MY CONTINUING PROMISE:**  
As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.  
The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("only" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between 4 stories, 3 kids, (2 six and under), 1 husband and the life that contains them all and more, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.


	13. Chapter 13: Fish Stories

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 13**

**Fish Stories**

**A◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊●●●●●◊Ω**

The sun was just past its zenith when Riddick finally forced himself to move. He was reluctant. He hated the idea of heading into anything new while he was so physically chancy, but there was no help for it and they needed time to get somewhere else. "Coulter!" he barked. "Rise and shine."

She groaned.

He was tempted to reach over and shake the shelter, to see how well that cold shower was embedded in her reactive memory, but he had mercy on his chest. "Now, Coulter."

"Yeah, yeah," he heard her answer, but under her breath she muttered, "Sadist. You can make me rise, but no way can you make me shine."

Riddick smiled, and a few moments later she dragged herself and her bag from the shelter. "What time is it?"

"Just after noon."

"Oh." She squinted up at the sun filtering through the leaves. "Feels like I went to sleep just a few minutes ago."

"You were sleeping hard."

"Yeah," she nodded tiredly. "Thanks for that."

Riddick looked at her wondering if she realized the impact her simple little courtesies had before he finally reached into the duffle for a couple bars. "Hungry?" he offered.

Her hand reached for it automatically, but then something more aware entered her eyes. "Actually, no." Her hand fell. "I ate while you were sleeping."

"Bullshit," he retorted mildly.

It took her a moment, and then she looked back to him sharply. "Excuse me?"

"I said, bullshit," Riddick repeated. "You're lying."

"What?" she snapped sardonically. "You take a crack on the head and now you think you're a mind reader?"

"Don't have to be." He tossed the bar in front of her. "I can count. Happen to know you didn't eat last night or this morning either."

She looked guilty, then shook her head as she picked up the bar and looked at the label. "It says it must be eaten with water. We don't have that much to spare and you lost a fair bit of blood. You need it more than I do."

That was the _last_ reason he expected, but he had his own for insisting. "We can find more water. If you faint, I ain't carryin' you," Riddick came back sternly. She didn't appear convinced. "Like I said, I _can_ count," he added.

"One, two... yeah. Riddick is always right... most the time, anyways."

Riddick raised an eyebrow at her cockiness as she heaved an overly large sigh. "Fine," she began to rip the package open like a practiced pro. "You don't have to get nasty about it. Try and do a guy a favor..." she muttered half heartedly, but when he handed the girl her water bottle she smiled at him gratefully.

_Damn that smile. She's not going to make this easy._

They ate their food in relative silence. She was cautiously checking out the sounds around them, but Riddick caught her occasionally glancing at him again... at his bandaged chest... his arm. This time he didn't say anything. He didn't know what was running through _her_ head, but there was a little quiet appreciation for the odds panning out running through his. There were so many things that could have gone wrong with this scenario... if he hadn't let her keep her popgun... if the claws had gone any deeper... if she hadn't seen that documentary at the zoo... if the first aid kit hadn't been so well equipped... if she hadn't already been familiar with the devices...

He gave his head a mental shake. Sometimes luck could be measured. Sometimes it was beyond quantifying. He was glad he was on the receiving end more often then not, but he couldn't help wondering when it was going to run out.

Suddenly he saw Coulter tense slightly as her head angled. "Why are the Dar-Gen and bio-guide out in the dirt?" she asked sounding slightly perturbed.

"Dead batteries. Dead weight," Riddick answered simply, and then looked at her as she opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again. "You got a problem with that?"

"That's expensive equipment, especially the bio-guide. Even dead they're valuable. A new recharger..." She trailed off mid-thought. "We could sell them..."

She was right about their value. They were worth quite a bit, but not compared to the effort of hauling them, especially now. And in the back of his mind he couldn't help thinking of the addicts he'd seen, willing to go to any lengths to get their hands on any thing they could pawn for their next fix.

But then she stopped and shook her head. "You're right," she sighed. "Dead weight now."

"You a credit pincher?" he eyed her.

"I'm on Tony's account," she answered. "I can charge my fare, but getting you on a ship may be another story. Either way, your expenses will be coming out of my pocket and I'll just have to hope I can get my money back."

_More comin' outta you're pocket than you know,_ Riddick thought lightly, recalling the jewelry from Jenner's locker now residing in _his_ pocket - jewelry he fully intended to hock. He had a good idea where Jenner got them, the necklace and earrings, at least. They matched the bracelet she had packed away in her purse. "Gallo do that for you?"

"He should." She shrugged. "I seem to recall saying some flaky things about Tony." She looked a little embarrassed. "They're all true, to a degree, but I think I was feeling fatalistic in the dark. I mean I've worked for Tony for years. He trusts me, and there _were_ witnesses when Jenner grabbed me. If anyone's asking questions it will be pretty obvious I wasn't willing. And with you coming to back me up... I know Tony will appreciate everything you've done. And if I can still deliver those disks... if the data on them's not dated... he's going to be really grateful... I just know it."

"How grateful we talkin'?"

"Oh, I would have no idea," she looked at him, a whisper of concern brushing her eyes. "But I'm sure it could be worth quite a bit to you. And Tony has connections cash can't touch." There was the faintest hint of plea in her voice, an almost imperceptible worry. _No, not so naive__.__ Whatever I thought, she ain't dumb._ And that brought a new concern to the mix. If she wasn't convinced they were going to meet Gallo by the time they got to civilization, he'd have to watch her... closely. She'd be back in the city... her element... and if she thought Leone was on Riddick's ballot she might well try to ditch him... or, worse yet, get him caught.

"I'm easy," he shrugged. "Anything he gave would be more then I've got now."

She smiled hopefully, and Riddick was surprised to feel a twinge of guilt.

He tossed his wrapper in the fire, ending the conversation before it could trigger any more introspection. "But I won't get nothin' if we stay here. Time to go."

She shoved her last bite in, following it with a final sparing swallow of water, and then sealed off the bottle ready to 'do.' "What first?"

"The fire. Shelter next. Were not outta here yet, so save the netting 'n wire, if you can."

She slipped her bottle into its holster - it barely had enough water to make a slosh - and stood, brushing off her outfit before grabbing his 'walking stick' from beside the shelter. Using the blunt end, she started poking at the largest pieces of wood. Her pale little get up, Riddick noted, wasn't nearly so pale as it used to be. Berry juice, moss rubs and other little discolorations with a general application of dirt all over had muted the brightness, and he found his attention drawn to the new dull brown splotches contrasting the cheerful pastels... same dull brown stain that discolored the sharp end of his spear. "I'm surprised that cat blood ain't bothering you more."

She paused, looking down at the dried spots. Almost reflexively she brushed a hand over one a few times as if she hoped it might come off, but the 'slick' of her classy little outfit was gone. The spot stayed. She wiped her hand unconsciously on her thigh despite blood's dried nature. "This is different," she said quietly, her mood suddenly sober. She knew immediately what he was commenting on. While distasteful, the cat's bodily fluids weren't inspiring the same hysteric revulsion Vera's had. "It's an animal."

"Humans are animals," he countered.

"No," she shook her head. "Some human's _ACT_ like animals..."

_Like me?_ he silently asked the words she might of said but hadn't. He would not have taken offense if she had. Since hitting prison especially, he'd discovered there was a part of him that was _very _animal, and the way he was living now was doing nothing to subdue it.

"... but we're something better than that," she continued. "I hope I never have to kill a human, but humans that _act _like animals..." Her sentence cut off hard as she shook her head. "Sometimes they don't give you a choice." There was something deep there, something angry, lingering, regretful, and she turned suddenly to attack the fire with a single minded determination.

In that moment the monosyllabic conversation he had with her over knowing how to use the med-kit back at the crash site made perfect sense and he knew with sudden surety how that gunshot wound she had unsuccessfully tried to treat had been inflicted. _She actually __shot__ someone... __intentionally__ shot someone._ Riddick found himself surprised again. There was a depth to this girl he had not anticipated, and he found himself wondering which category she would place him in.

There was little discussion of duties. She simply took over the lion's share of the tasks. Without water to douse the fire, there was no way to put it out quickly. Instead, using the stick, she pushed the pieces apart and moved them around until they couldn't keep a flame and stirred up the bed uncovering the coals that had built up. Separated and exposed, they began to cool.

It wasn't the best choice, but they had limited options. It was bad news to leave a hot fire behind you. You never knew what might kick up a few coals or bright ashes, and if they landed in the right spot it might not take much to get them flaming again. If the conditions were right, it could be your own tail you were burning. While she played with the coals, he pulled out the compass and verified their bearings. There was a lake somewhere ahead of them... a river beyond that.

He would have gotten up to assist when she started the shelter, but she simply said, "I got it." At the moment, that suited him fine. She'd put the thing together. No reason she couldn't take it apart. She shifted and tugged and dismembered, but when some of the smaller lattice sections dropped nearby, he pulled them over and began to help reclaim the wire with as little movement as possible. It was uncomfortable, but it didn't compare to shaving so was ignored. Before long, another shelter was reduced to a pile of sticks and boughs, and salvaged ship components

He put the wire and netting in the duffle and tucked the Steribottles in before closing it up. Two liters less weight to carry, but it was a mixed blessing. They were getting out of here, and their next task was finding water. They _had_ to find water. They hadn't but a swallow or two left between them.

Riddick climbed carefully to his feet, and by the time he had, she had claimed the duffle, hefting it up on her shoulder. "Which way?" she asked, and Riddick eyed her a moment. It wasn't a big duffle, but on her it looked closer to a marine's billet bag.

"You goin' butch on me?"

"Do you really want to carry it?" she returned.

That was an easy answer even if her new attitude wasn't sitting right. If it weren't for her, he wouldn't have needed half the stuff to start with. He glanced over her again. Might be interesting to see how long she managed because he really wasn't quite sure how well easily he would. "This way," he finally answered, and took the lead.

They made it out of the narrow valley within an hour, and once they did, the terrain eased up a bit... at least to the degree they didn't have to deal with as much congestion as the trees and types of undergrowth began to shift to thinner, shorter species better suited to the rocky soil. The elevation, on the other hand, continued to be a variable. The land dropped and climbed with irregular frequency, but there were no paces to keep today. Despite that, their water, such that it was, didn't stretch very far.

As he trudged, Riddick kept an eye out for a new source and tried to figure their location. Without the landmarks offered by a topographical map, it was hard to place them exactly. He knew there was a lake ahead, and it seemed they should be getting close. He was even sure he'd caught wind of it a time or two when he'd escaped Coulter's floral envelope, but with the way large scents carried, it could be two klicks or could be ten, and they really needed the water now. Without an open source, he would have to fall back on alternate collection methods. Neither impossible nor difficult; it'd just take time, and it'd take effort. Two elements he really hoped he wouldn't have to invest at the moment.

He wanted to appreciate he was still breathing after another "shoulda died" moment, but he just couldn't quite see past the fact he was tired, thirsty, and he hurt. Pain might be an obstacle to overcome... it might serve to remind him he was alive... but he wished it wasn't doing so quite so stridently, and he hated feeling so hampered. He was vertical and he was moving, but if he had to fight... if another of those Gryphyian things found them... he glanced back at Coulter and her little mousegun.

The duffle had switched shoulders for the umpteenth time. It was clearly a burden, but she wasn't saying squat... wasn't going to give him a reason to even _think_ he should consider carrying it and the curious thing was he wasn't sure if she was doing it for him or for her. One in the same really. If he went down, she was stuck, but there was something about a few things she said... the way she said them... that made him wonder what her angle was.

Even now, she heaved the bag up and let it rest on a small log as she squeezed between the wood and a rock. It wasn't much more than waist high and had been no problem for him to ease over... albeit carefully... but shorter, weighed down - she'd gone for through. She came out the other side with her skirt speckled by moss and lichen. She tried to brush them off, but many of the speckles transformed into dark smears. She looked at her hand in disgust. He waited, expecting some eruption or plaintive complaint, but she'd reached her limit. She stared at the stains, and then her skirt, and then back at her hand. Her shoulders fell. Then she deliberately, _consciously_, wiped her hand on the fabric before tiredly shouldering the bag again. A smile flickered across Riddick's lips briefly. _Forest - 1; Coulter - 0._ He was betting he wouldn't hear anymore about the outfit, but it was the little holster affixed to the upper left quadrant that was of more concern to him. Just how much of her shot had been luck? What were the chances she could pull off another 'cats-eye' if it was needed? He wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

He leaned on a tree waiting for her to catch up. His mouth was parched and the constant movement was taking its toll. Just within that last half hour his head had begun to throb and his chest felt like they'd tucked a few coals from the fire under the bandages for safe keeping. Even his arm was aching. They were less than a klick from the summit but the angle had taken on a sudden strong _up_ shift even as the number of rocks increased. He could see most the slope from where he stood and he didn't look forward to climbing it. It wasn't that he _couldn't_... he was used to pushing through pain, but there was no sign anyone was on to them... no pressing need to keep making time. He eyed his surroundings. With no defensive requirements, no weather to find shelter from, one place was as nearly good as another to go to ground... except for the obvious, no water, but he was ready to call the day quits right there. _Goin' soft_, he growled to himself.

When Coulter caught up he pushed away from the tree and caught his breath as a flash of pain seared across his chest. His hand lifted protectively as he curled his shoulders releasing the tension through his pectorals, and Coulter caught it. He heard the duffle hit the ground and a moment later her hand was on his arm. _Getting' a bit familiar, aren't we._

"Mr... I mean, Riddick?" she asked softly. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he snarled, and straightened up in spite of the pain, as irritated with himself as he was with her for noticing.

She stepped back, but she didn't step down. "I don't think so," she countered hesitantly. "You're pushing it again."

"We've barely made 5 klicks. That's not pushing it."

"Riddick, please," she argued carefully. "A few days ago you were in a ship crash, dislocated your shoulder and had to put it back in yourself. Yesterday you got your head cracked against a tree hard enough to cause a concussion, at least a mild one I'm guessing, and on top of that, you were mauled by a cat with poisonous claws. You went critical twice before the toxins broke down into who knows what. Half your chest is glued together... literally... and you have a liter of Gen-Hem in your veins pretending to be blood... it's good, but it's not the real thing... and, by the looks of it, the painkiller has worn off. I understand the need to relocate away from the dead cats, but don't you think trying to actually cover any amount of ground under these conditions is pushing it? Please, you're not doing yourself or me any favors."

She was making sense, but there was something she said that didn't fit... "You gave me a painkiller? I didn't see any missing from the med-kit."

"It wasn't in the med-kit. I had it in my bag. This dope is nice to have if I work out too hard, but what I really need it for are these killer headaches I get every once in a while. They can knock me down pretty hard and this works better for me... fewer side effects than standard painkillers." She went to the duffle, slipping open the end pocket, and pulled out the little doser he'd found. _Painkiller. Not a fix._

He shook his head and felt the movement sharply translated down into his chest as she returned to him, device in hand. "I don't like drugs." There wasn't just the reaction issue. It was also coming off being forcibly addicted to who knew what.

"I don't like them either," she agreed. "Sometimes they go weird on me. This is my own personal blend. I've a pharmacist back home that helped me put it together. He doesn't dare label it. Not all the ingredients are totally legal, and he'd probably lose his license if he was caught mixing it, but when I'm running jobs, I need something that deals with the pain and doesn't leave me loopy or wiped out. I wasn't sure how pain killers affected you, but the ones in the med kit can mess with me so I took a chance on mine. I wanted you thinking clearly when you woke up," she said grimly.

She knew quite well the danger she'd put herself in. _No, not dumb._

"You gave me this stuff before?"

"Just before the bio-guide batteries went out. The readings suggested you were in a lot of pain. I honestly expected it to last longer though. One dose usually lasts me around 20 hours, and I'm guessing your around 90 kilos. That's just under two of me so two doses should have been overkill, but if you're hurting, it's cut out. This stuff works hard and fades fast."

That explained why he thought he'd caught his scent on the device. Explained a few things. Riddick weighed his options. He hated drugs, but if she had used it on him before, she was right about the side effects... he hadn't noticed anything significant and he wasn't feeling any cravings so maybe the drugs in her little mix weren't any relations to the ones they'd used on him at Altair. It had definitely cut the pain. He nodded, reluctantly.

"Okay." She flipped the little doser open and held it up. "It hits quick," she warned. "It's probably going to make your head spin for a minute, but once your brain acclimates, the feeling fades."

"Do it."

She laid the device against his neck. He heard two brief hisses, felt two brief pinches, and within moments the trees around him blurred and began to swim as his brain was invaded with something like ribbons of numb. He swayed and felt Coulter's hands latch onto his arm to steady him before he could lose balance.

"You okay?" she asked as the ribbons spread out, and where they found active pain receptors they seemed to coil around them, wrapping them away. The pain diminished, then vanished, and slowly the remaining ribbons seemed to melt away leaving the sensation of a faint film coating the inside of his mind.

"Stuff packs a punch," he murmured, blinking through the blurriness and even as he did, the sensation of the film began to fade leaving behind a faint but curious sense of isolation. Coulter was looking concerned.

"It seems to be hitting you harder than it hits me. Maybe it's the dosage... or its interacting with the Gen-Hem or one of the other chemicals left over in your system."

Maybe. Or maybe he still wasn't completely over Altair. Maybe he'd have to be careful after all. The thought of having to go through withdrawal again - on any level - was enough to make him flinch, but he clamped down on it. "Maybe, but it's a damn sight better than others I've had." Her hands fell away as he took a step. Feeling a lingering wash of vertigo, he carefully made his way over to a small rock outcrop and eased himself down. He knew the vertigo should fade as well. It hadn't been bothering him when he got up this morning. "How long before it settles in full?"

"Ten... fifteen minutes? I'm usually up and moving in under five, but it's made for me. I'm sure there are genotypes we don't share."

Riddick nodded absently. That'd been something the "doctor" at Altair had complained about... that Riddick's anomalous genotype hampered the ability to fine tune his more selective cocktails. Riddick's records read "place of birth: unknown," and what tests they'd run hadn't narrowed it much further. The human genome changed as it spread across the stars and adapted to new worlds one way or another. It could be used to trace a person's heritage back through the planets their people had colonized and, beyond that, to their Earth Prime nationalities in many cases. Usually. His was, evidently, relatively unique. He had no people. No heritage. But that was neither here nor there.

Riddick glanced over their position. Coulter had the right of it. He'd been pushing and he didn't need to do that... not today anyways. They needed to make camp sooner than later. If they didn't find water they'd need time to make do... but there was that lake. It had been curiously circular on the map. He considered the steep incline.

He didn't feel like scouting, and the girl needed to be reminded who was in charge. "Leave the duffle here." He gestured to the ground beside him. "I've got a job for you."

She put the doser back before obediently bringing the duffle over and putting it by his rock. He smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile. It was a 'you're not going to like what I say, but you're going to do it anyway' smile and Coulter picked up on it right away. "See the top of that hill?" he looked toward the summit and then back at her. "Go take a look. Tell me what's on the other side."

She stared at him, completely certain she must have misheard. "Me? Go look?" she squeaked in surprise. "Alone?"

"Then come back. Tell me," Riddick confirmed. It'd be a tough sell... if he was selling.

She stared at the hilltop before gaping back at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope." he answered flatly. "Go look."

"Riddick..."

"You won't get lost. Just go straight up. I'll be able to see you most the way."

"But..."

"Turn around. Come back. You'll be able to see me."

"I can't..."

"One."

"What if..."

"Two."

"Mr. Riddick! Please!"

"Coulter," he dropped his voice, but echoed the placid tone he'd used in the cockpit when she'd kicked his tools. "Be useful." It was an undisguised threat, and for good measure he lifted his hand to rest on his leg... centimeters from the knife strapped to his thigh.

It was totally unfair considering she'd been nothing but useful since he'd been pinned by the "cat," but no one said life was fair. If it was, he wouldn't have been here with her in the first place. She was looking shocked as she backed away, staring at his hand... at the knife, and then she turned quickly and started up the hill. But she hadn't even made it 30 meters before her voice began to carry back to him. Some of the things she was comparing him to weren't very nice.

Under the threat of certain death - shrieking at a bird exploding from its hiding place, gagging at a moderately sized snail that found its life ended prematurely on the bottom of her boot and sustained by a seething anger he could hear half the way up as she scrambled over rocks, - Coulter mastered the summit. He watched as she crested the hill, and then pushed on a little further leaving his sight. She was gone a couple minutes, long enough to make him wonder if sending her alone had been such a good idea after all, and then she was back. He could tell she was excited, even from a distance.

"A lake," she shouted from the top. "There's a lake down there.

'Down there.' Those were the words that caught his attention. Just how far 'down there' was she talking?

Coulter offered no explanation for her delay when she returned, but roughed up stockings and a new stain of dark dirt down one side and disappearing under her skirt supplied a possible explanation... slip on a steep hill could do that. Since she didn't complain about anything hurting, Riddick didn't press for details. Instead, he listened to her report, and when she moved to reclaim the duffle, he let her. He could see it in her attitude... she didn't appreciate his methods, but she recognized the importance of the find.

Nor was the lake she'd spotted far - a good klick up and near another kilometer down the other side - but after scaling the hill himself and picking his way down the even longer, steeper incline, it was far enough. Whether he liked it or not, his little secretary was closer to the mark than he cared to admit, and the last two klicks hadn't helped matters. At the moment it didn't matter if it was the substances in his system, the GenHem, the close call last night - make that _two_ close calls according to Coulter and there were two Stabrafin's missing - or what, he was just wiped, so what he saw before him was beautiful beyond the simple fact of 'water source'.

The lake was, indeed, circular. The elements of its form and confinement cried "ancient caldera," and the dark rock they'd been seeing with increasing regularity along the way went right along with it. Riddick noted the conformity of the steep, almost cliff like sides that hemmed in the little body of water and realized he'd drawn the luck card again. They'd actually managed to approach from one of the few sides navigable by foot... a little detail for which he was unaccountably grateful.

The steep sides were green to a degree - everything in this wilderness was green to one degree or another - but the monster trees the ship had come down in couldn't find footing in this drier, rocky terrain so it was a different kind of growth that spilled over into the odd shaped bowl and clung to its sides. The steepest were nearly vertical... black faces with scattered streaks of jade. From the distance they looked a great deal like the lichen covered rocks he and Coulter had been going over and around to get there, only these rocks had been scaled up. The patches of green were actually scrub brush and small trees that had wedged their seedling root systems into cracks and crevices on rocky ledges and managed to flourish.

These cliffs made it unlikely anything was going to approach them from the lakeside without their having ample warning because across the water was the only real path open. Further, the caldera's shape made it a natural amphitheatre. If anything with engines flew anywhere near, he would hear it. If they came the other way, and tried to pin him against the lake, they'd find this terrain much more accommodating to a single individual with his skills than they might like. It felt "safe," and right now that was exactly what he needed... a safe place - at least as safe as one could get in a wilderness - where he could drink his fill and _rest_.

And drinks _were_ the first order of business. Once Coulter hit level ground he helped himself to the swish stick and the Steribottles from the duffle. Even from the top of the hill the intermittent view of the lake through the trees had looked inviting. The water itself was pristine and smooth. Dark sapphire clarity ringed with a broken rim of mottled gray revealed occasional shallows peppered with green and amber patches of rushes and water grasses along edges before it dropped off into great depth. As they drew closer to level he could see the surface rippling with the faint caresses of air currents and the occasional ever-widening circles of life nipping from the underside. At the sight he felt his first option stir sleepily. Here was everything a man could need... water, wood, food... And volcanic rock had its own possibilities. It was quite likely he could find caves and lava tubes that could easily become defensible long term dwellings. _If_ he wanted to stay here. _If_ he wanted to live wild on the same planet as a slam.

He glanced back at the pale clad secretary who had dropped the duffle and was following him hopefully to the shoreline. Whether he liked it or not, she had stirred the whispers of maybe Jacobson had planted ...a life, a wife, some place called _home_... _Ain't possible._.. and that niggling hope, however impossible, just didn't want to die. If he had the means... if he could go far enough... get lost enough .._.Not for me_... But he found the irony of living on Tangier's doorstep just didn't have the appeal it had three days ago.

They had come down on a narrow piece of open shoreline. Grass and other small plants surrounded scattered "stepping stones" of rocky roughness creating moderately even ground, and the hard unyielding sense of solidness beneath his boots as Riddick walked across it told him why trees weren't blocking the view here. The surface beneath them had been washed by runoff down to solid stone. It fed out joining a piece of the shallow rim giving them a view of open water flanked on either side by green growth shifting to rushes and water grass along the shore. On the right, the growth was short stuff butted up against a large column of dark rock that had separated from the cliff wall and toppled into the lake. It had happened so long ago the column's shattered base had been buried by the erosion of the hillside and it was now well covered with plants and small bushes. The column's flat surface left it looking a great deal like a dock jutting out into the water, save its support was solid stone. On the left side, the forest they'd come down through went a bit further, but Riddick knew it'd turn back to cliff too before long. The rushes and trees on the left pretty much hid the shoreline beyond their little cove, but by the time it made the curve and came into view again, it was sheer.

Riddick squatted on a rocky black shoreline edged with a layer of dark sand and ran the swish stick through the water in front of him. It was only moments before the lights flashed green, indicating no harmful toxins so he filled the first Steribottle, sealed it and activated the sterilization cycle. It took a minute to run, so as it did he studied the sandy surface at the water's edge. It wasn't heavy enough to hold plants, but he could make out a few footprints pressed into the malleable surface. Among the recent users of the water source he identified several things with hooves and a few with pads, but none were as big as a Gryphyian cat. No obvious threats. When the Steribottle was finished he took a long, deep, satisfying drink of the clear fresh lake water with a hint of a mineralized tang. He let that one go down, well aware Coulter was watching him anxiously, but she didn't dare ask. He might say no. Riddick smiled inwardly as he took another drink, but he finally handed the bottle off to the girl. She took it eagerly, and while she drank, he filled the second bottle.

"So," he started as he got up, moving over to a rough outcrop of rock jutting up by the shore where he sat while the second cycle ran, "where we putting up tonight?"

She stared at him. "Why are you asking me?"

Riddick smiled again. "Because you're settin' up camp."

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Coulter had managed to pick an acceptable location - with a little input - and had put together a usable camp with minimal guidance afterwards. She had basic fire pits down pat and he'd gone with her to find firewood although he hadn't done any of the lifting or carrying. Going with her had ensured she selected the dead, dried wood they needed rather than trying to make do with half green stuff she'd pulled in at the cat camp, and it ensured she actually went far enough from camp to look for it. Short of another death threat, she wasn't going far without company, and it took more than one trip. It was more than he wanted to go on to start with, but it had to be done. He wondered how close _she_ was to one more being one too many.

This had to be a far departure from the stress and workload of being a secretary, even a courier for a crime boss. Granted, she'd evidently had moments - like when she actually shot a man; that still surprised Riddick - but she left him feeling those moments were the exception, not the norm. This wasn't her natural environment or her normal conditions. She was adapting well enough considering, but living in a constant state of alert wore on you, as he well knew, although he seemed able to handle it better than most. Until she felt comfortable, just being here would be wearing. The last 20 plus hours, especially, hadn't been easy on her... being shorted the majority of a sleep cycle, a couple meals, and carrying the duffle - as short as it had been - was taking a cumulative toll. Riddick could see it in little things... in the way she moved, in delays in reaction. She wasn't complaining, but he wasn't sure if that was a sign of resignation or how close to critical she was.

That's why he'd opted for open sky tonight. If she shut down they would both be hurting. If any weather came in, they'd be hurting too, but he didn't expect it, so he'd 'suggested' softer beds instead of shelter… less effort. The rock was hard enough they'd want something between them and ground anyway. To that end, he'd had Coulter spread two of the emergency blankets "fabric" side out width ways with a good overlap. They had four of the things, so they might as well use them. Then, instead of having to hack up poles and drag in boughs for a lean-to, he told her how to cut down cattails and scrape up the dryer layers of fallen leaves and needles from under the trees to make a cushion for the ground. Before long she had pulled the netting out of the duffle and unfolded it enough to help her carry larger amounts of the bulky 'fluff'. It put the netting at a minimal risk, but Riddick didn't begrudge her the assistance. If she ripped it, she _would_ fix it.

He helped with this. Not a lot, but if he was getting a bed, he was going to do what he could to make the best of it. As she brought in loads of cushion, he helped arrange it on the blankets. When they had enough, he planned to wrap the stuff inside turning them into an open ended mattress. Unfortunately, he had discovered the task also wrapped his chest in dull searing ache in spite of the painkillers. Maybe it was because they had been blended primarily for the girl, or mainly for her headaches, but he was coming to figure that this mix was good for keeping the small to average stuff at bay, but things that actively involved his chest, and, by in large, his arms... He felt those. Even the simple maneuvering of 'fluff' became a chore, but he just grit his teeth and pushed through because the alternatives - what alternatives the med kit offered and what they might do to his head and body - weren't acceptable.

He'd had the cushion wide enough for one and was folding an emergency blanket over it to check the coverage when she approached with another load. She stared at him, then the open space on the other side of the fire, and clutched her load a little tighter. "Mr... Riddick?" He already knew what she was thinking.

"It's Riddick, _just_ Riddick," he corrected without looking up, "or the answer's no."

"Riddick," she adjusted her form of address quickly, but the question came a little more slowly.

_Things like this have to be phrased carefully_, he thought with a smirk.

"Can... can I sleep on your side of the fire?"

He looked up. Such an opportunity... but no. The girl was tired. He let the opportunity slide. He owed her that much. "Yeah." He pulled back the emergency blanket indicating she should drop the grass next to the rest - it was what he'd planned anyway. After the night in the lean-to he knew better than to think she was going to be able to sleep anywhere wild, especially under open night, without being near him. Even so, she looked at him suspiciously before she complied.

It was a short time later, as they were finishing up, that things took a potentially interesting turn. They had enough padding and he set her to perforating the edges and running a straightened wire through the holes turning the blankets into a grass stuffed tube. The plan was, when she was done, to roll the thing over seam side down so that their weight on top would help anchor the blankets in place... if the blanket held. It was a relatively thin material. It was quite strong considering its layered composition, but it wasn't exactly designed for this. What it would do, regardless, was keep the wet and vapor of their bedding from soaking them while they slept and as long as it did that he wouldn't have a great deal to complain about. He couldn't say what Coulter thought, she was still keeping her mouth shut, but he very quickly became more interested in what she might say to one more task before dinner.

He let her finish as he rested, seeking a position that didn't stress the wounds and would let the painkillers do their work while she crawled over the rough ground beside the bed trying to work the wire through the holes without doing anymore damage to her stockings than she'd already done. Then she'd gasped. He had looked quickly, not sure what to expect, and had found her gaze directed over the water. Shifting his he caught a huge slate silver bird, wings full spread, just as it extended sharply taloned feet toward a faint rippling in the lake's surface. The bird's wingspan was easily over two meters wide and its feathers flashed a burnished metallic in the afternoon sun. Its underside was a softer grey, while its talons, its legs, its beak and accents about its head, pinions and tail were all jet black. Its eyes were grey ice. He saw this all quite clearly as the great avian broke the surface of the water and, with a single taloned foot, plucked a fish from the lake not forty meters from the shoreline. A piercing cry of victory shattered the quiet of the afternoon, and then with just a few powerful strokes, the bird banked sharply and was climbing skyward again.

Riddick put the fish at a good sixty-plus centimeters, and yet the bird's gain of altitude appeared effortless. The fish twisted and flapped in the single clawed foot that held it until the bird reached down with its beak, and a single savage twist to the fish's head ended the struggle. The bird then caught its prize in both feet and began a lazy circle upward toward the rim as it announced its success one more time. _Magnificent_, was Riddick's first thought, and it was closely followed by, _Nice size fish in that lake. Too bad..._

Denise interrupted that thought. "If only catching fish and getting out of here were both that easy," she grumbled wistfully.

That caught his attention and raised an eyebrow. "You fish?"

She smiled wearily, returning to the task at hand. "Used to... well, once or twice anyways, but it's been awhile." She sighed briefly. "A long while."

"Mom?"

She shook her head. "No, dad. He had a nice little skiff and a membership to a fishing club. They kept a lake in the mountains stocked with all the necessities for a get away in the wilderness... fish, launches, cabins."

_Get away in the wilderness to a stocked lake with cabins?_ Riddick thought scornfully. Anything in this girl's life really real besides her no-show mom?

"A couple times, when his partner backed out on him," she went on, "Dad dragged me along."

"You just company, or you actually catch something?"

"Oh, I did it," she grinned. "The last time he took me I caught eight to his five and beat his biggest by four centimeters. You'd have thought I caught the Gnorash Lake Monster by the way he went on," she laughed, "but he left me in the cabin after that, whether he had a partner or not."

Riddick chuckled, even as he felt a brief pang of envy. Absentee mom and self-conscious dad, but at least she had them. Must've been nice. He dismissed the jealousy as his mind sorted more relevant possibilities.

"Honestly, after that trip with my mom," she continued, "even the cabin was a little extreme for me. Holo-hikes are as much wilderness as I want now days." She looked around with a shiver, and then focused on finishing the bed. "But I do kind of miss fishing though," she added after a moment. "I remember it being fun and I remember how good the fish tasted after my dad cooked them up. I don't think any seafood Tony has ever imported tasted better."

Riddick had found something in the survival kit back on the ship. As Denise finished up, he pulled the duffle over and did a little digging. He'd packed it more for the filament, figuring the wire would only last so long, but maybe it could serve its intended purpose after all. He pulled out the package and read the label again: "BASIC FISHING KIT. 50 meters (25 kg test) line. 10 swivel clips. 10 standard barbed hooks (assorted sizes)". Basic was right, but it was all they needed. He didn't even have to make the hooks.

"Wanna try it here?"

"What? Fishing?" she looked around, and then glanced up at the bird just disappearing over the rim. "You have a pole?" she asked, surprised.

"We can make do."

She looked at him apprehensively. "Do I have to bait the hook?"

"What? You're daddy do that for you?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "I used a lure... one of the flashy-looked-like-a-little-fish kind, but you don't have anything like that in your little package there, do you?"

_A lure. It figures. _ "No..." Riddick mused thoughtfully, considering how sure she was that he didn't have one, but then she'd had plenty of unsupervised time to explore the contents of the duffle last night. _More fake stuff. Shoulda guessed._ "But I might be able to come up with some flash. Still ought'a have something for the hook though. Think you can handle finding something _real_ a fish would like?"

She looked around. "You mean like worms or bugs or little fish?"

"Yeah."

Her face screwed up in disgust. "Maybe..." she acknowledged hesitantly. After his stunt at the bottom of the hill, she didn't know how far to trust him.

"You find it. I'll bait the hook," he promised.

"What do I put them in? There is no way I'm carrying that kind of stuff in my hands."

Riddick rummaged in the duffle briefly before pulling out a small cooking pot. With a careful flip of his wrist he tossed it in her direction. She caught it and looked around again with a more thoughtful expression. If she'd been paying attention she should already have a good idea what the land offered and where to find it. She'd been turning rocks making the fire pit, she'd been walking through the trees and along the shallows getting padding... this shouldn't be a hit or miss proposition... _if_ she'd been paying attention.

She was thinking about it. He could see the gears spinning. "Can I have the piece of netting you wrapped the snake in, a knife and the sewing kit?" she asked tentatively.

Riddick stared at her momentarily, judging the items importance against the time they had left. "You can have the netting. I want the rest back," he clarified nodding toward the duffle. She nodded and hurried over. She found the items she wanted relatively quickly, and pulled out his tank top out along with the netting and the sewing kit. When she was finished Riddick pulled his smallest knife and handed it to her hilt first.

This startled her, and she looked suspiciously at the handle and then at the rocky ground between her feet. When she looked up again she wore a different smile, this one quietly gloating over his inability to demonstrate knife throwing skills in the vicinity of her toes. Riddick raised an eyebrow and glanced over her little outfit spotting a few places loose enough to 'catch' the knife without - most likely - nicking her. She must have read the look accurately because her smile vanished and she was very quick about taking the handle and jerking it out of his hand... but she did so in a fashion that didn't endanger his palm or fingers with either of the knife's edges. He remembered the respectful fashion she'd managed his larger blade with when he sent her to cut saplings that first night. No question. The girl had handled knives before. It might not be a revelation, especially if she did any cooking at home. Lot of cooks still used knives. Not usually double edged, but knives none the less. But it was worth noting.

She parked everything but the knife before wandering down the bank. She didn't go far - Riddick never lost sight of her through the foliage - and she hurried back within a few minutes bringing with her two long thin willow type sticks. She traded what she carried for the netting and tank top and took both to the shoreline where she washed them out in the lake. His tank top took the longest, and the dark cloud that spread from her hands as she worked was a silent reminder of what he'd been through, and who had pulled him through it.

When she was done she spread the tank top on the rock and shook out the netting. She inspected it and folded it in half as she walked back to the rest of her stuff. When she sat down, she evidently had a plan.

A needle and a couple long pieces of thread transformed the folded netting into a long bag. The edge seams were a big and ragged - neatness had not been his objective when he cut it - so she'd sewn them wide, and now she trimmed the seams on both sides turning the bag into a nice neat rectangle. He thought she was simply getting anal about neatness again, but then she took one of the strips from the trimming and used it to lash the thin end of her sticks together making a single long pole. Next she bent the pole in half, but the lashed ends were too stiff to fold, so instead the flexible wood on either side arced and she used the second strip to lash the two sticks together again forming an irregular tear shaped loop with a long handle. Finally she slid her bag inside, folded the edges over the wood loop and ran a row of stitches to secure it. The last thing she did was use the knife to add a pattern of little vertical slits around the bottom of the bag. When she was done the thing had a strong resemblance to a net. It wouldn't be much good for fish of any size, but it might well catch bait.

'Net' in hand, she scooped up some water in the pot, and then climbed the little hill onto the 'dock.' There were places where grass was more prevalent, and that's where she went to work, crouching down on the stone so she could reach over the edge with her net, she pulled the contraption through the weeds a couple times, then pulled it up and looked inside.

Evidently she had been hoping it wouldn't work, or perhaps it hadn't worked quite as intended, for as she viewed the contents her face took on a shocked expression that quickly evolved into disgust as she shifted back. Grasping the end, gingerly, with two fingers, she up ended her net into the pot. Riddick saw a green glop plop out into it, displacing a slosh of water, and heard a quiet squeal of, "Ewww!" from his companion. She set the net aside and looked into the pot. If there was anything they could use, it was hidden in the mass and she, evidently, realized it too. Pulling her head back and away, as if something were going to jump out at her, she poked in the pot with a cautious finger. "Oh, ewww!" she exclaimed, and then again when she pinched a piece of the green mass and drew out a long slimy strand of algae. "EWWW!" she complained as far she flung it back into the water as far she could. And then, screwing up her face, she reached in for more. "Ewww, ewww, ewww! How did I let him talk me into this?" she whined, but she kept at it.

Before long she peered into the little pot again. Her shoulders fell and she picked up the net again. _Nothing useful or not enough, _Riddick grinned to himself. But her idea had merit, and it looked like she wasn't going to quit after the first try. Based on that, he had hopes that she might actually succeed so Riddick proceeded with his half of the chore.

He pulled a ration bar and ripped it open, eating as he sorted through the firewood finding a stick that she could grip in her little hands. It wasn't going to be a pole. With the strength of this line they didn't need the give and take of something that long and thin. What might be better was a make shift reel she could actually roll the line up on, because if she _did_ manage to catch something, some of the fish in this lake were big enough to slice up skin if they made a run while she was pulling the line in by hand. With this in mind he found piece of wood about the length of his forearm that was fairly straight and stripped it to bare wood. He grooved the center with his knife to seat the string and added a notch to 'lock' it in place and keep it from slipping before taking off any jags or edges that would catch so the line would feed off a little easier.

Lastly he tied the string on and began the process of wrapping it on. This was a repetitive motion that grew to a dull ache across his chest, but it didn't take long. She wasn't going to need the full length because without a pole she wasn't going to get the distance she could by casting. He finished it by spiraling the line up and adding a notch counter to the wrap of the line to hold the end, and the tied on one of the swivel clips. Now it was ready to add the hook. For those he simply snipped four half meter lengths of line, putting a loop at one end and a hook at the other. The flash he'd promised came from the wrapper of the ration bar. Although the outside was rather nondescript, the silver lining was more that shiny enough to catch the light and, hopefully, a fish's interest. He cut the wrapper in short strips and tied a few in just above the hooks. The rest was up to Denise.

And it wasn't long after, she was back. She only went through her netting process three times before she finally stopped, and Riddick wondered if he had misjudged her willingness to persevere but by the way she carried the pot, it held something. Was she just going to show off the collection of organic junk she'd "caught" and announce her mission a failure? He half expected it, but when she sat the pot down beside him, among the little pieces of debris and flotsam in the water, there were three small minnow sized fish and two good sized creatures that were clearly a larval amphibian of some sort. By the legs he saw developing, his first guess was frogs. _May have a __real__ chorus tonight. Wonder how she'll handle that,_ Riddick thought idly, but to her he nodded once. "Might work."

It took Riddick less than two minutes to bait the hooks while the girl deliberately occupied herself with the fire. When he was done he handed her the "rod" and then the pot. "Think you can figure this out, or do you need a demo?" he asked in mild challenge.

Her eyes flared. "It's _a lot_ cruder than the last one I used," she returned haughtily, "but I think I can figure it ou..." She glanced in the pot and then shuddered, quickly moving it and her eyes in opposite directions. "They're still alive," she protested.

"Yeah."

"Don't you think that's cruel?"

_Cruel? She forget what I am? _ "Didn't have any merc hunters handy," he rejoined, reminding her who she was traveling with, and almost immediately regretted the comment as she blanched, fear flashing in her eyes. _Damn. Maybe ought to rethink my approach if I want her trusting me by the time we reach the city. Wasn't thinking about that when I made her go hiking. Wasn't thinking about anything but calling a halt__ at the time._And there was a subtle undercurrent to his regret that cursed his carelessness for a whole different reason. It was hard to get used to... this being treated as human. "You don't have any fancy little lures this time around," he went into damage control. "Live bait moves."

She nodded, then backed up a step and turned, but it felt reluctant... as if she really didn't want to put her back to him... and her step had a hurry in it as she made her way back up the little hill to the 'dock.' _Careless. That shook her some. Don't need to remind her I kill people for a way of life if I'm going to get her comfortable. Gonna need to be careful, play it a little nicer from now on and hope I can get her mind off it again, _and as he thought about it, he remembered her hand on his shoulder at the base of the hill, 'getting a bit familiar.' It had come as more of a surprise, and he hadn't really been in the mood to appreciate it then, but that unsolicited show of concern hadn't gone unnoticed.

He watched her organize herself at the end of the 'dock' and shook his head. She held the swivel clip and hook line at arm's length as she connected them and untangled her first victim from the rest. Her first attempt at 'casting' out was a dismal failure. She forgot to pull the line out of its notch and centrifugal force ripped the little bait fish loose and tossed it in a glittering arc to plop in the water in front of the cliff... without hook or line attached.

Her second attempt was only slightly better. She undid the line and sent the pollywog in a sharp arc into the water - _with_ hook and line - like a short burst rocket less than 3 meters in front of her. Riddick heard the forceful spoosh as it entered the water and watched the short plume erupt upward as the stiff line sprang off the stick like an uncoiling spring only to fall, in deceptively slow motion, into the lake. Too late on release, and too slow on line control. Riddick chuckled as Coulter stared down at it a moment, and then stamped her little booted foot in frustration. _Timing's everything, girl. Try again._

He watched as she laboriously rewound the wet line and Riddick wasn't surprised when the hook came up minus one pollywog. She looked at the empty hook, secured her line and then went for a walk to the brush at the head of the dock. She came back with a small chunk of wood which she tied above the swivel and then switched out for a baited hook. _Bobber and weight. Might help, _he acknowledged, and it did. This 'cast' went a good 10 meters, and while some of the line managed to jump the stick, she quickly had it under control. She stood awhile, watching her 'bobber' drift, giving it a little jerk off and on to make the silver strips flash, but after awhile she sat cross legged on the edge and continued from there.

Things went quiet after that as she worked her line and Riddick just relaxed. An occasional glance in her direction showed the 'bobber' drawing closer and closer, the time between the jerks slowly increasing, until she finally pulled it up. The little larval frog hung like a limp black comma on the end of the line, obviously dead, and she shook her head regretfully before casting it back out. Sitting shorted her cast a couple meters, but she resumed her pattern of minuscule jerks until, several minutes later, her bobber began to jump faintly. It took her a few moments to notice, and then she gave her stick an over zealous heave. The bobber jumped and came skipping across the surface, but as soon as it came to rest, the little piece of wood went still and remained that way. Whatever had shown interest hadn't accompanied the hook in its violent relocation. The question now was had the bait?

Denise worked the line in with a distinctly faster pattern of jerks, clearly hoping she still had bait, but anxious to verify it. As it turned out, she did not. _Three down, one to go_, Riddick thought at her, although there was one fish left loose in the pot. That was one more line she could throw tonight if they used it, but they wouldn't have time to hunt up any more bait after that. They'd be losing light soon enough. Her near miss _was_ encouraging, however. If she could just settle down and remember not to yank the hook straight out of the fish's mouth. Riddick was hopeful, but quite honestly, he wasn't expecting anything. With all the technology at man's disposal, all they could do was play with the odds. Fish were living things, and anytime you were dealing with something as complex as a living brain - even one as small as a fish's - it would remain a challenge requiring a certain degree of skill. It might be that without the advantage of her fancy lures, she didn't have it, but she was giving it a good try. But if she didn't catch anything tonight, maybe they could try for breakfast.

He watched her switch out for her last hook, and then stand. Although the direction went a little wide, sailing off toward the right a bit, this 'cast' was smooth and graceful, adding a couple meters to her best distance and Riddick nodded in silent acknowledgement. It was a respectable distance considering the equipment. As soon as the bobber settled in the water she sat down, and the waiting game began again.

Evening slowly began to take the caldera over. The cliff face across the way grew shades and shades darker as the sun began to edge over the rim sending long shadowy fingers reaching down for the water as the great light slipped behind and the cliff face went dark. The inky darkness began to spread from the cliff across the water as well. The growing stain of shade pushed across the lake dropping a filter of blue grey over all the hues it touched. Riddick watched the water shift from a sparkling crystal blue to a deeper midnight as the edge slowly advanced across its surface. The temperature dropped with it, and night wouldn't be far behind, but there was nothing left to do to prepare. Either Coulter would catch a fish, or she wouldn't, and unless she did, they were set. Normally he would spend his camp side downtime planning or preparing. Sometimes he would just keep himself busy with idle work like honing his knives, but the lack of hunters offered a time of unaccustomed quiet to his thoughts while his chest compelled stillness on his body.

He let his head fall forward and closed his eyes, listening to the lapping of the mountain lake on the shore as he let his hands hang loose over his own cross legged knees, drinking in the living silence of the wilderness, all his cruelty justified. It was as close to "peace" as he had come in a very long time. He wasn't listening for distant footsteps and breaking brush. He wasn't consciously searching for alarm calls from the fauna. He'd hear them if they happened, but they weren't his focus. This time around he was able to catch and appreciate the distant cry of the hawk up on the rim, the sleepy chirp of birds settling in for the night, the soft whine of insects hovering above the water and the start of a lazy frog chorus from the shallows. He expected a reaction from her to this last one, but after looking around curiously, she settled back in, and, if anything, relaxed more. Even the quiet crackle of their fire became just another harmony. Occasionally the burning wood would offer a sharp staccato "pop", and his reflexes would be ready for something serious, but those simply became the moments he glanced over at Denise to check her progress.

The stillness was having an affect on her. The bobber's forward progress became sporadic as the girl's head nodded forward only to jerk up as some bird call or other native sound snapped her from her doze. The bobber's progress would resume, and then stall again a short time later.

On one of his random checks Riddick looked up and realized one of the nearby cliff sides was rippling... a strange ribbon of dark flowing _up_ from the water. Riddick watched curiously, as it undulated its way over the rock face until it reached about 2 meters above the waterline, and then began separating into individual spots of darkness, scattering into the air and dispersing. Some skimmed the water, spreading out across the lake, while others simply launched upwards, quickly disappearing in the distance. At first, the identity of the airborne spots was only a supposition, but as he watched, a number of the things spread in the direction of their camp. Their high pitched clicking and chirps tickling the upper range of his hearing confirming he was, indeed, watching a colony of bats emerging into the dusk. Their climbing egress lasted for several minutes until Riddick put the colony population around 3500; a relatively small colony, but still quite the effective pest control considering each of the little beasts would eat its weight in insects every night.

He wasn't really surprised. The sides of the caldera were probably riddled with potential bat caves, but the entrance to this one lay unexpectedly close to the waterline. If the water level rose, they'd be trapped. Maybe this was maximum fill for the lake. The shoreline rather supported the thought. There was no sign of a higher water level, or a lower one for that matter. The cliff walls appeared unbroken all the way around, but it would only take a single through passage to funnel excess water away and keep the level constant. That might mean there was a stream they could follow. It might even lead to the river that was supposed to be on the other side. If they could find either and follow it down, it would keep a water source handy.

He made a note to check the compass in the morning and verify where the river was supposed to be, but right now he refused to be bothered. Quiet time of this sort was something he rarely enjoyed... even this trip. He glanced at Coulter noticing the 'pole' had slipped in her grip slightly, letting a few coils of slack line fall in the water, and, without her constant attention, the bobber had began to drift in a lazy diagonal toward to the side of the cliff. She was so out of it she hadn't even noticed the bats. _Probably a good thing, but yeah,_ Riddick mused,_ last couple days have taken it out of both of us._ He let his own head nod forward, only to snap it up as something big splashed near by.

His first thought was something big enough to take a snap at a bat, but he wasn't about to assume it. He didn't see the original source - it was behind the 'dock' - but he saw side by side wakes pushing through the water heading toward the bobber with lightning speed. "Denise!" he shouted as the bobber went under. The two wakes parted abruptly as she jerked upright, and turned toward him in surprise. He could see she still had one hand wrapped securely around the pole, which was good for there was no time for another warning. The fish took up the slack and hit the end of the line before Riddick could utter another word. Her arm yanked out of her lap across the water, and she was yanked off balance. There was a startled shriek as she flailed in a frantic effort to save herself, but it was too late. She hit the pot with a wild swing and she, the pot and their last bait fish all disappeared over the edge followed by a tremendous splash.

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**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Afterburn Tango - **Thank you so much! I did my own little happy dance when I got your review *grin*. Its one thing to be told your story is great or that a reader loved it - certainly appreciated! - but how often does a writer get to hear that her work inspired a happy dance? *bigger grin*

Oh, wouldn't it be fun to imagine - :D - Turn About: The Movie - LOL. But yes, I know exactly what you mean. Half the story goes on in the character's heads, especially with a character like Riddick, and sometimes it is the _reasons_ for their reactions, rather than the reactions themselves that carry the story. You definitely lose that in a movie.

Well, life goes on, but so does the writing :o). I have no intention of reneging on my promise... and I sincerely hope Turn About will be finished sooner than later *says a little prayer* because I so want to get on to finishing the others too! Thanks again for the happy words. I write because I love to write, but people who take the time to review certainly add fuel to my fire :)!

**Kevlo** - Thank you! I'm glad I'm finding a good balance between action and humor. That can be hard to achieve sometimes :o), and to say it is on par with the original movie is high praise indeed! Thanks again!

**Nelle07** - I appreciate the praise! Yea! One chapter closer to the end of the tale... I'm so excited, and so glad you loved the last one. Hope you loved this one too!

**Vashti - **Thanks for your praise :). To hear I'm keeping Riddick in character is one of the things I enjoy most because he can be a difficult character to nail down. That you are enjoying Denise is equally gratifying because I have had so much fun with this story, and with her. She's not the usual sort of character you'd expect Riddick to be hanging out with - LOL. So far as the back story, Pitch Black really caught my interest and made me wonder what would make a man turn out like Riddick... so hard and seemingly heartless... or was he really? There wasn't enough official material out there to tell me, so what's a fic writer gonna do... well, fill the void of course - LOL. I am so glad your enjoying it!

**Tiberius T. **- Thanks! I'm glad you like it. Certainly survival is one place where Riddick excels so it was a natural setting to put him in. The fun part was saddling him with Denise - haha.

So far as all the little details, I can't take all the credit. The foster family and the zoo is all mine, but Altair is based on "fact"... well, sort of *grin* - I did take liberties. Altair Prison Network is an ambiguous prison that shows up in the Hunt for Riddick online game. In that game you are novice bounty hunter sent after Riddick and you don't find out he was in Altair until you combine info from about three or four different sources in your database. The key to discovering Riddick was there is a Furyan DNA sample. Evidently inmates weren't identified by names in Altair. That sounded pretty clandestine to me. I combined it with the 'psychological research under the influence of drugs' found in Into Pitch Black , a "documentary" made for the Sci Fi Channel.

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******My promise to faithful readers:**  
As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.

The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("_only_" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between 4 stories, 3 kids, (2 of them young; 1 a teen), a husband and the life that contains them all plus a few other responsibilities on the side, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.


	14. Chapter 14: Troublesome Thoughts

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 14**

**Troublesome Thoughts**

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What he heard next sounded a great deal like a small war taking place on the other side of the rock as a large fish jumped and fell back broadside into the water near the cliff. Over the violent thrashing echoing back to him off the cliff face, Riddick could hear Coulter's voice cursing the fish's linage, akinning it to slugs, snakes and Riddicks... or at least one Riddick in particular... as she sputtered and splashed. Riddick couldn't see her, but so long as he could hear her voicing an opinion, he wasn't worried that she was drowning so he simply waited to see what would happen. After a few minutes the splashing subsided, though not the fussing, and after a few more she went quiet. She came around the front of the rock, half walking, half swimming, in water up to her chest with her purse floating behind her back like a sparkling buoy. She avoided cutting through the algae and cattails growing next to the rock and angled for the rocky sand below their camp. Her movement had an awkward jerking action to it, as if she couldn't keep her feet straight underneath her. As water became shallower, her weight gave her better footing, but the awkward movement continued. It quickly became obvious she still had the 'pole'... and she had something on the line that wasn't following quietly.

There was nothing demure about his little secretary now. The shallower the lake became, the more sure her movement got, until she stood rigid in the knee deep water in front of him. And she was _hot_... Riddick half expected he should be seeing steam coming off her or feel sparks prickling his brain the way her eyes were burning. And he took note of something else. As she stood there dripping, her hair dark and flat hanging in her face, the sopping clothes clung toher slight form enhancing _all_ the curves. And there was a little more there under that loose top than he'd originally imagined... she certainly wasn't stacked, but her shape was not as slight as it originally appeared. He also liked what was behind her... something dark and silver thrashed and flipped, stirring up the water, tugging at her arm, but she held firm.

"I'm cold and I'm wet," she fumed with righteous indignation, "and it's gonna pay!"

She lifted the 'pole,' the line rolled up short, so that she dragged a large dark fish from the water. The frantic creature was a sleek glossy blue black along the top with iridescent ruby and turquoise spots flashing like running lights down its sides above a metallic silver belly. _Definitely in the trout family_, Riddick decided. It wasn't quite as big as the hawk's, but there was more than enough to make a meal for both of them.

"You catch it; you clean it," he drawled, and he watched her brows knit.

"Clean it?"

_Let me guess. Your daddy did the cleaning. _ "Yeah, you know, clean it. Slice it open... pull the guts out." He could see it. No question she knew what cleaning meant now... she'd seen him clean the snake, and she was angry, but she wasn't _that_ angry.

"Oh, no! No, no! That wasn't part of the deal. You didn't tell me there was any cleaning involved." She stared at him, and then the struggling fish as if it were mutating in her grasp before she dropped it back into the water with an air of dawning horror. It resumed its frenetic struggle against the line and without the rigid fury to stiffen her arm the trout's efforts were a great deal more effective. She seemed to flutter like a bird with a broken wing as the one arm jerked with the fish's desperate efforts. "Don't ask me to do that. Please," she pleaded, water flicking from her arm with each jerk, clinging to her lashes, dripping from her skirt hem and fingertips. She suddenly looked utterly wilted. "I can't. I'd rather cut it loose."

That was the last thing Riddick wanted. It probably wouldn't do the fish any good either. As well as it was hooked, there was a good chance it was doing itself damage with all the fighting. He knew he could bully her into it, but after a moment he relented. It wasn't that he didn't think she could do it, she'd seen a lot of blood these last few days... no small amount of it his... and handled it, but it was in his best interests to start acting more of a do-right sort of guy for the time being. Not to mention that when it came to the fish, if hers tasted like what it looked like, there was no way he wanted it getting away from him.

"I'll clean it," he announced.

Her features flashed through astonishment to gratitude in an instant. "Really?" she exclaimed in relief. "I don't have to?"

"No. Go wring out your dress. It's cooling off quick now that the sun's dropping below the rim," he jerked his head toward the trees and climbed to his feet.

"Oh, thank you, Riddick, thank you," she gushed as she sloshed happily out of the water. She bounced up the shore and handed the fish off with a brief, if spontaneous - and very decidedly _cold_, exceedingly _wet_ - hug of appreciation.

Riddick froze, but it had nothing to do with the water, and everything to do with two grateful arms wrapped around his middle. This wasn't her glad to see him because she thought she was going to die in the fog. This was simple spur-of-the-moment gratitude, and he wasn't sure what to do with it. She let go a heartbeat later and scooted off toward cover, drops of water flicking off her skirt and sleeves, and he could only stare after her feeling the chilly evidence of her action dripping down his middle and soaking into the waistband. _Guess we're familiar again?_ he concluded,, rather bemused by the brief incident, and then shook his head, before turning his attention to the fish. He heard her footsteps pause as he drew his knife. He imagined she was running up against her fear of foliage now that it was getting darker, but he didn't pay her any attention. Just because their aquatic companion was going to be dinner didn't mean it had to suffer any longer than necessary.

He lowered the fish to the ground, gently pinning it with his boot, and quickly pushed the tip of his blade through the flesh behind the eyes. Life functions ceased instantly as he severed the spinal cord from the brain at the base, and the flopping body abruptly went still beneath his foot. The hook was not immediately visible, so he secured the line and unclipped the leader from the swivel before tossing the 'pole' on the duffle. It had done its job, but there might still be uses for the line. By the time he looked back, Denise had gathered her courage to step behind a tree, and he left her to her own devices as he strolled to the shore, limp fish in hand.

The line disappeared down the trout's throat so Riddick didn't bother trying to find the hook. He just flipped the fish as he had the snake, slitting it from vent to chin with a single easy stroke. He severed the gullet from the jaws and began scooping the guts out carefully, knowing the hook within, and he found it in short order. There was no way the animal would have survived had Coulter released it. It had swallowed the bait whole and its insides were ripped and rearranged from all its fighting. Severing the innards at the other end, he dropped them on the bank. Using his thumb nail, he stripped out the blood line and remaining organs along the spine before rinsing the empty cavity with fresh water and setting the fish aside. He located the hook within the string of gut and cut it out, finding the dead bait fish still attached. _Don't need this any more_, he thought with satisfaction and pulled it off, tossing it out past the weeds. Only after sending the guts after it and washing the hook and his hands off did he collect the fish and mosey back toward the fire.

Behind the tree he could hear Coulter talking softly to herself. She was venting her frustration in a new litany of things she wanted to do when she got out of the woods. There was a shopping trip for new clothes, a manicure and a visit to the salon to get her hair redone, but first she wanted a smorgasbord of fresh fruits and vegetables, and maybe a thick steak to get the taste of rations out of her mouth. And she wanted to start it off with a thick slice of Dark Cassidian Chocolate Silk Pie for desert. Riddick had to smile. Desert first? He could deal with that, and he couldn't fault her taste. He'd never even heard of Dark Cassidan Chocolate Silk Pie, but if there was chocolate involved there couldn't be too much wrong with it. He liked his dark as well, when he could get it. He'd picked up a bar just a few days before Jenner snagged him - the first he'd had in years - and it was good. Maybe he'd celebrate getting out of here. With 25,000 in his pocket he could afford a couple chocolate bars.

...If he went that route.

He was almost startled to find that thought popping up so prominently. He'd decided to keep his options open, but he didn't much like weighing cash against questions. He _knew_ what he could do with the cash. He had only Coulter's opinion that Gallo and his appreciation would be worth his effort. He glanced over to where the little secretary had taken cover. He could just see part of her head and caught the flash of tan arms as she pulled her top back on, exclaiming softly at its chilly dampness. He'd saved her life. Then she'd saved his... twice by the look of things. But she'd called them even. He turned back to the fish. There was no rush to decide.

He played with the fire, moving a few pieces of wood around to look beneath them. They had a decent coal bed started, and that was exactly what he needed. The fish was too big to cook evenly using the easy hang by the fire with a stick method, but Riddick had a plan. By the time Denise rejoined him, her top hanging a little heavier, but no longer plastered to her torso, he had a couple of the thinner, straighter pieces of firewood wired into a lopsided X and was working on a second. "Need one thing," he spoke as she approached and he held out the big knife, handle first. "You get me a sturdy stick that'll span this pit with a little left over and I'll cook you some fish."

She took the knife hesitantly and then looked around. He already knew what she was thinking. They'd already collected everything dry that was worth picking up nearby and cut it down to fire size. Something straight off a tree might be too flexible. Finding a stick strong enough might mean going just a little bit further. He also knew how he was going to handle it. She already knew he could bully her if it came to it. That wouldn't be too far from her thoughts, so this time he was taking a friendlier tact. "Just the one. You won't have to go too far," he encouraged. He was careful not to let a patronizing tone creep into it. From now on he was being 'nicer'. "Don't even have to trim it. I'll do that here."

"Just one?" she asked worriedly.

"Just one," he assured. "Won't take you any time at all. Wouldn't ask if I didn't know it was safe." The chances of anything being in the woods after all the traipsing around they'd done was pretty slim.

"Just the one," she repeated with a trace of resolve.

"That's it. One stick," he confirmed.

She looked around, then took a deep breath. "Okay. I think I can do that."

She was back in just a few minutes, her rate of return significantly faster than her pace at departure, but the stick she'd found was perfectly suited to the job. He didn't have anymore errands for her, so he had her strip off her wet socks and boots and set them up to dry as he set about finishing his spit. Riddick stripped her stick clean except for a couple branches on one side near the middle. These he trimmed and left spiking out several centimeters. He shoved the stick into the hollow cavity of the fish, up through its mouth, and slid it down midway so the protruding branches jutted into its belly. There he went so far as to actually push the spikes through the flesh on either side of the spine, and then used another piece of wire, stripped of its casing, to secure the tail.

That done, he moved the burning wood to one side uncovering the hot coals underneath. He lay the spitted fish across the X's which he had wedged up with rocks on either side making a basic spit to cook the fish with. Lastly, he lashed a shorter stick to the end of the spit at an angle to use as a handle that could 'lock' the spit in position. This he did with a bit of line, tying the handle to one side of the X frame, holding the fish angled to the coals. It wasn't an incredibly sturdy contraption, but if he could baby it through this one evening, it would get the job done. If they were going to be staying a while longer, he would have put things together differently, but it wasn't going to be too long before they were going to be thinking ships not fish.

He no longer doubted the girl's ability to keep a decent pace, even by his standards. She was fit... fitter than most. They'd lost some ground yesterday but they'd covered some leading up to it so they really weren't that far off his original estimate. That meant two, maybe three days till they hit the chaos of civilization... two, maybe three days to convince her she was best off sticking with him until they got her disks delivered... where ever _he_ was going to deliver them.

Denise kept herself occupied as he worked. She squirmed just a little as he started poking the stick up the fish's empty gut and took herself elsewhere for a bit, gingerly wandering back to the 'dock' in her barefeet. The frog chorus went quiet at her approach and she crouched on the edge searching the grass for several minutes before she went to the far side and peered over the edge there as well. After a moment she picked up one of the empty hooks left laying on the stone and dropped to her belly, reaching over the edge. He could guess what she was doing, but after a few minutes she stood up empty handed. _Scratch one pot?_ He didn't like the idea of leaving something that might still be useful behind, but no one was going diving for it tonight. She collected the other hooks, and detoured to the shore to collect his tank top on her way back.

"I'm sorry. I think I've lost the pot," she offered cautiously when she made it back to camp. "I must have knocked it off when I fell in... but I got the hooks," she ended hopefully.

_'Play nice' opportunity._ Riddick grunted dismissively and shrugged his good shoulder. "Haven't had fresh fish for a long awhile. Fair trade." The slight tenseness about her dissolved. She looked surprised to be forgiven so easily, and it quickly transformed into one of those grateful smiles. "Maybe we can do something about it in the morning," he added. "Put the hooks in with the line."

She raised a suspicious eyebrow at the "we" part of "do something", but obeyed, curling the leaders and the hooks in a neat little circle before tucking them in the fishing box and putting it away. After that she adjusted her spot to be near the remaining fire and revealed she had also grabbed the sewing kit. For the next hour or so, as Riddick tended the fish - carefully rotating it from one side to the other - she applied herself to the shreds of his tank top. The sun had already slipped past the lip dropping their bowl into shadow, but as they worked, the shadows deepened and their little world quietly slipped into a muted night, the dark sky dulled by a cloud layer high overhead. It didn't look heavy enough for rain, but Riddick suspected morning would be damp.

Working by firelight wasn't probably the best sort of illumination for the work she was trying to do, nor did it help that she kept getting pulled off task to glance suspiciously into the night at troublesome sounds, but she was working with determination. He suspected it was as much feeling cold as needing the light that had her edging so near the fire, but she wasn't complaining. Riddick watched her hunch over the fabric trying to line up the many strips and shreds into a semblance of something whole and tack them back together. He could tell by her expression that she wasn't wholly pleased with the results she was getting. "Lost cause?" he finally asked wondering how many of the little skeins of thread in the kit she was going to use up in the attempt.

"Almost, but I don't like the alternative," she answered without looking up.

"Which is?"

Her tongue curled up over her lip briefly as she carefully lined up two edges of cloth and secured them in place before tucking the needle in the seam and straightening up. She sighed and rolled her shoulders. "Let's face it, where we're going a guy with your physique is bound to draw _some_ attention. Can't be helped. But that chest wrapped in nothing but bandages?" She shook her head. "That'll do more than draw attention. That'll be an outright curiosity. I figure it's in our best interest to hide them as much as we can until we can get you a new shirt."

The thought had already occurred to Riddick and she had the right of it. With or without bandages, his chest was going to be conspicuous. Until it was covered, there would be little chance of his traveling through any level of society without drawing additional undue attention. He'd figured his best bet was to find someplace on the out skirts of town where he could help himself to a shirt, although lifting something that fit was always problematic.

Repairing the tank top, however, hadn't even been among the options he'd considered. Reconstructing that mess was more than his larger fingers could comfortably accomplish. That she took this on unasked showed some initiative... and indicated she might be considering sticking with him over going it alone. He figured she was smart enough to be weighing her own options, so this looked promising... for him. He just needed to lock down her decision. His hand slipped down and unfastened the buttons on the pocket of his cargo pants so he could fish out his own little sewing kit, recovered from Jenner's locker. "Here," he said as he flipped it over to her. "You might need more thread."

She caught the little package and inspected it, raising an eyebrow. "Really! You sew?"

"Only if I have to," Riddick smirked as he refastened his pocket.

Denise laughed. "Yet another surprising ability revealed."

"Livin' life rough inspires all sorts of skills."

She paused at that comment, then cocked her head. "So are you one of those X gene kind of men? The kind that plan their life to live on the edge?"

The innocent question was unexpected, and was just as unexpectedly painful. Fleeting thoughts of what he'd lost... of what she kept reminding him he would never have... home, wife, kids... twisted briefly in his gut before he could stop them. "No," Riddick responded shortly. "Didn't plan none of this. It's just what happened," and before she could pursue it, he abruptly turned his attention back to the fish, dismissing the conversation. The girl had an irritating knack for getting under his skin... of making him think of things he'd rather not, but this time she had the good sense to leave off.

A time of silence fell over them as each focused on their particular task. Riddick was watching the fish carefully now, as the limp, gray, translucent flesh visible through the gut cavity grew pale and opaque. It was a careful balancing act keeping the coals hot enough to cook without allowing actual flame and Riddick wasn't always successful. By the time he was done, the thin tail membranes were charred and the skin was crispy in a couple places, but the fish had gone white eyed and firm and Riddick was more than ready to enjoy it. It was easy to push his negativity aside in the face of such a rare pleasure. While he'd been trained to survive in most any climate he encountered so long as the basics - food, water, shelter - were achievable, more often than not it was an urban wilderness he found himself in. Fresh wild-caught fish from a pristine water source were not part of that landscape.

"Stop stitching and come over here," he ordered.

She looked up warily, but her expression went hopeful as she saw him lift the spit off the frame. She got up hurriedly, gathering up the project in her lap as she did and came around the fire only to pause, wondering where she was supposed to go next.

"No plates," Riddick explained, indicating the empty space next to him with an elbow. "We'll be sharin'."

She hesitated, but only for a moment, and knelt down beside him licking her lips in anticipation. "It's literally been years since I had fish this way," she smiled as she set her bundle beside her and then she chuckled ruefully. "Who'd have ever guessed it would take crash landing in a wilderness to make it happen again." She flashed him a grin. "I'm glad you're the one that made it."

Riddick raised an eyebrow. Not that he expected she would have found Jenner friendlier company, well, maybe she would... too friendly... but he couldn't think of too many people who'd be glad to have _him_ along these days, cooking skills not withstanding... unless, of course, they had him shackled, tied and were expecting a pay off.

"Can't say as I'm disappointed," Riddick responded as he lowered the fish before them. He was ready to eat, but he did expect one more small delay. She didn't let him down.

"Oh!" She choked slightly as the head on their dinner with its paled out eyes and gaping hollow jaws came down in front of her. "Those... eyes...! I can't eat something that's watching me!"

"It's dead and cooked. It ain't watching anything," Riddick retorted, but even as he said it, he used his knife to sever the head and slide it off into the fire pit. Flipping the offending face into the middle, he rolled the half burning pieces of wood from the side back in to bury it. He didn't care one way or the other, but why miss a 'make nice' opportunity. Thanks to the spikes, the body remained firmly anchored to the stick just as he had planned.

She flinched a little at the beheading, but when he was done, she relaxed. "Thanks," she offered, slightly chagrined. "That was just too freaky to eat with."

Riddick kept his eye rolling to himself as he used his knife to peel back the scaleless skin, surprised to find pink flesh beneath it. He knew the things an animal ate could flavor its meat, and that in some cases it could even change the meat. He'd never had a trout type with pink flesh before, but he'd heard about it... He stuck his knife in, gently loosening a portion of the flesh from the rib bones, watching the firm meat crack across its surface as it separated into smaller pieces. _Can't get much better than this_, he thought. "You caught it," he deferred the first bite to her taking the opportunity to continue his nice streak.

"You cooked it," she returned.

Riddick grinned, and they both reached in and helped themselves to a chunk of the fillet.

A moment later a satisfied, "Mmmmmmm," sounded beside him. "Oh, Riddick," Denise exclaimed, "this is delicious. I've never had fish this good!"

Riddick's opinion was much the same as the succulent hot flesh filled his mouth with its unique wild caught flavor. "Worth getting wet for?"

"Let you know in the morning after I see how cold I get," she said ruefully, and then she paused and looked up almost shyly. "Thank you for... for cleaning it." Riddick knew what she meant. It wasn't just the cleaning she'd been grateful to avoid. She managed to pull him through. She could probably deal with guts if it came to it. It was the killing thing. Kill or be killed was one thing. Killing in cold blood was another. He didn't hold that part against her. Killing didn't come easy to most... hadn't initially come easy to him, but he learned.

"No problem," he grunted.

She stared at him a long moment, contemplatively, then turned her attention back to the fish. They ate in compatible silence as she savored each bite the way she had the berries. He made sure she got a fair share, though - admittedly - his share was reasonably bigger. They picked one side clean, then flipped it and demolished the other side as well. When there was nothing left but bone structure, Riddick used his knife to pry it off the stick and flip it into the fire. The stick itself he held in the flames just long enough to burn off the fish scent. Beneath it, the thin rib bones flared to brightness for a few brief moments as the fire consumed them. As their incandescence died, the heavier vertebrae began to take on a glow. They looked like a string of hot molten nuggets before they began to fall apart, some dropping into the ash bed, others catching on the wood, glowing like dull suns until they were reduced to dark carbon.

When the little light show had died completely, Coulter pulled her attention from the flames and picked up the bundle. Riddick half expected her to relocate to her original position, but after a sidelong glance at him and then the trees, she spread out the shirt and resumed repair where she was. He looked over her work critically. The tank top was coming together, but there was just a limit to what you could do with needle and thread. The fact she could do it at all was novel. Lotta women skipped sewing 101 these days. Lotta women couldn't even cook; just bought prepackaged, heat it up and called it dinner. He would have originally taken her for one of those, but he wasn't so sure now.

She didn't work much longer though. Sitting still with a good meal in her belly was taking its toll. Slowly the yawns started creeping in, and before long it was a new one every few stitches. She'd have to stop and wipe her eyes on her sleeve before she could continue only to have it happen again six stitches later. Heaving a big sigh, she finally dropped the sewing in her lap. "I'm not going to get anymore done this way. I'll have to try and finish it tomorrow." She tucked her needle in a seam and picked up the two sewing kits, carefully folding them up in the tank top. "Besides, we really should check your chest and make sure nothing pulled open today."

That particular task wasn't on his _'want_-to-do' list, but it was certainly on the 'ought-to-do' one. "Yeah," Riddick accepted her suggestion. "Let's get it done." Letting her do it would be a lot less awkward and a whole lot less painful than doing it himself, and he needed to check the work under the bandages anyways. If she'd missed something, he wanted to find it before it had a chance to blow itself into a full-scale infection.

She took her bundle to the duffle and exchanged it for the med kit, returning to her spot hastily as an owl of some sort hooted near by. "I'll be so glad to get out of here," she murmured, stifling another yawn as she sat back down beside him.

Riddick withheld a sarcastic remark in favor of his new 'do-right' image and offered, "Won't be much longer," instead.

"Really? How long?" she asked as she opened the kit.

"Two, maybe three more nights, 'pending on our pace," he said with an internal shake of his head. When they'd started out he was sure _she_ would be the cause of any delays. Now, if they stayed three more nights, _he'd_ likely be the cause. There was an ironic little blow to his man card. "Like to shoot for two."

"The sooner the better," she agreed resolutely with another condemning glance at the darkened trees around them, and then she got down to business. She unfastened the end of the wrap, and then stood, carefully leaning over him to unwind the Spyder Wrap, rolling it as she went. Riddick put his hands on his head giving her clear access to the bandages, and it didn't take long for a low grade ache to spread across his front in response to the position. He ignored it. When she was finished, he dropped his arms gratefully as she knelt and gently peeled off the pads that covered the wounds. "Tell me about the poison that was on those claws," he ordered.

"According to the documentary I saw, it's from a gland the males use for marking territory," she answered as her brows knit at finding a couple patches of blood on the pads. "The creators were having issues. Some twist in the DNA blends was making the oil acidic and it was causing the males to go lame with infections. One of the scientists came up with the bright idea of creating a symbiotic bacterium that would neutralize the acid, and it worked. They didn't figure out till later that a by-product of the process was a short lived toxin. It breaks down after six hours in the victim's system, but during that time, it causes paralysis, wipes out the clotting factor and causes the body temp to spike dangerously high. That's why they ended up calling them Fever Cats. Fatalities come by cardiorespiratory failure and/or massive hemorrhaging. I'd say by your reactions the documentary had it about right. Its nasty stuff, and the Anti-All didn't counter all of it. It got kind of touchy there for a bit."

_Yeah,_ Riddick considered, _a Clotto Internal and two Stabrafin's worth of touchy. _Riddick remembered the light hurting his eyes, remembered his skin tingling... The symptoms had been there. With hindsight it made sense, but he hadn't been thinking poison at the time. He also remembered the bloody mess he'd been. Now his chest looked like something out of a horror vid with red seams criss-crossing smooth pink lines and a number of odd abstract shapes of livid dar-gened flesh in-between. The device wasn't made for regenerating wounds on this scale, and he knew it had been no easy job piecing him back together.

"Do you have that palm light?" Denise asked as she set the bandages in the med kit and Riddick fished it out of his pocket.

She mumbled thoughtfully to herself - a satisfied check list of what she wasn't seeing; no puffiness, no swelling, no undue redness - as she shined the light over his chest inspecting her work critically, and then she reached over and pulled the derm-glue and a gauze pad out of the kit. "Hold the light here," she directed, and Riddick complied. The wounds only offered a dull ache as she carefully cleaned each of the blood that had seeped and caked their surface. Next he felt the antiseptic sting of the derm-glue bite the raw edges of a small wound, and then the sharp pain of traumatized flesh easing into a new position. "A few minor separations, but nothing pulled apart badly. No signs of infection. I think you may come out of this in one piece," she grinned as she held the edges of the wound together for it to adhere. "And if we can get you to a clinic with a commercial dar-gen in the next few days before too much natural healing takes place, we can take care of this properly... unless you _want_ to keep this collection of scars to impress the ladies."

"No," he answered flatly, "Got enough already."

She laughed softly, and then applied herself to repairing another separation, and then a third. "I'm thinking leave the bandages off for the night, let the glued incisions get some air and get a good seal."

"Works for me," Riddick agreed.

When she was done, Denise applied the antibiotic gel sparingly and then shifted over to his side. She was moving the way she did when she had a job she was comfortable with. It was a relaxed, laid back manner that belied the intensity of her focus and was easy to dismiss. She checked his arm, poking and prodding the pink line gently, making sure the edges were well fused and there was nothing developing beneath the sealed surface, and when she was done with that, she slipped in behind him. The animal side growled warning.

Riddick jerked, half turned, a reaction that caused his breath to catch and her to gasp as he came up against a hand braced against his shoulder. "Easy," she said tense and low, "You're going to rip something," and then his motion was further blocked as she put a hand on his other shoulder and pressed her whole body against his back. Her top was still just damp enough to hold a chill, but it warmed almost instantly sandwiched between them. He felt her twist around to look back at the trees, and as she did, her little holster pressed against his skin. The cold metal of her gun made its location known and his animal grumbled, but began to stand down.

"Did you hear something?" she whispered fearfully. Her hands clutched at him even as he relaxed. It wasn't all that unpleasant having her up against his back.

"It's nothing," he reassured, easing back to a less painful position.

"You're sure?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah."

Her hands relaxed. "Okay," she agreed shakily. "I guess you'd know. You certainly knew the cats were there before they attacked."

_One of them, anyway. Should've never had to deal with them in the first place_, Riddick thought sourly. _ Stupid move, stepping in that blood. Lesson learned._ And he was packing blood again. Although the location wasn't quite as prone to sharing as the bottom of a boot, he was keenly aware of the dark stains and stiffness around his waistband. Wasn't merc blood this time. Was his. Needed to be dealt with, but not tonight.

Behind him, Denise drew a deliberately deep breath and let it out, and then her hands were moving once more. They slid to his neck and began gently inspecting the dar-gened skin on the back of his head. The tenderness there was pretty much gone so her gentle exploration was more pleasant than painful. Once she was satisfied that portion was also healing properly she started down his neck, the familiar stroking that led into massage. He never lost track of her hands. They worked in tandem easing into the muscles on either side of his vertebrae as she moved down his back and then back up. When she reached his neck again, she shifted over to his sore shoulder. It seemed she was settling in for a good one and Riddick was more than willing to let it happen... so long as he knew where both those hands were. He was sore, and he was tired, and he was tired of hurting, but he was satisfied and he was, for the time being, content.

By the time she was finished the night had closed in tight. He could hear the girl yawning fits, but behind him, away from the fire, she was also getting cold. He heard the start of a shiver in her breath, but their run in over the humidity taught her better than to complain to him about something he couldn't change. This, however, he could, to a degree, and there were no reason he saw to delay further. He was more than ready to call it a day. There was only had one major task left on his agenda.

"Time to hit the sack. Pull out another emergency blanket and the netting," he commanded. While she obeyed, he took the stick he had used to spit the fish and jammed it - with some bit of discomfort - deep in a dirt filled crack in the rock at the head of the 'bed'. Wasn't real sturdy, but didn't need to be once they were in place. It was just enough to keep the netting above their heads. Couldn't be called a tent by any stretch of the imagination, but the netting would keep most the morning mist off their faces and it would keep the bugs at bay - although it was more of an added caution in the last regard. The repellant in the rations had kicked in, and bugs hadn't been an issue of late, but even if they were, Riddick didn't expect them to be here. The bats would see to that.

As she spread the blanket over the bed, he pulled her boots away from the heat and worked on the fire. He banked the sides and put on more wood. It would burn a while longer, and then ought to sleep in the coals till morning. Withnothing actively hunting them, he wasn't planning to maintain flames. That left him hoping quite sincerely that Denise would be asleep by the time the fire died... and that she wouldn't wake up til light. He really didn't need her freaking out in the middle of the night because it was dark. He also pulled out the grease spray. If they needed flame, they'd have it fast.

He had her spread the netting over the bed next, but left it folded it back. She scrounged up a couple additional rocks to anchor the far side and bottom, and then stood staring warily into the darkness. Riddick didn't need to ask why. One more thing to do, but it had been inevitable. "Slip your socks and boots on. Then get the gear," he announced, and used the palm light to pan over the trees. "I didn't scout a location. You see someplace that'd make a decent latrine?" She looked confused for a moment, then the light went on.

"The tree where I was wringing out my clothes seemed to have more dirt than rock under it," she answered cautiously.

"That'll do," he replied as he flashed his light in the lucky tree's direction. It was closer to camp than he really liked, but that was one dubious advantage to traveling with a walking air freshener. They wouldn't be staying long enough for other concerns to come into play.

She didn't complain about his presence as he put his back to the tree and her activities. Maybe a night without an escort had given her a new appreciation of his company. When she was done, he took the gear and sent her back to the fire alone. He moved off a little deeper to take care of his own needs, but tonight he didn't take any time for personal reflection or environmental appreciation. Bed was calling, such that it was, and he intended to heed it.

When he returned to the fire, he found Denise with her back to it, huddled as close as she could get, sleepy eyed, but cautious. As he came out of the darkness she flinched a bit. He hadn't been making any effort to be quiet so he didn't think it was totally surprise. When he put the gear away and found her watching him sidelong even more nervously, he didn't have to ask what was on her mind. She'd asked to sleep by him, but now she was having second thoughts.

She didn't need to be concerned. Not tonight. Tonight he had a different agenda. Sleep. Heal. Keep his payday happy. He crawled onto the bed, grateful for padding between himself and the hard ground. In his eyes it was a luxury, although he doubted Coulter would see it the same way. He moved to the far side giving her the position nearest the fire. With any luck it would appear he was 'being nice', but his motives weren't nearly so altruistic. Her clothes were still damp. The last thing he needed was her getting chilled, maybe sick. Even without an active flame, the coals would keep that side a little warmer. With him on the other, he hoped she'd stay toasty and let him sleep.

Of course, that required her getting in bed. "You gonna sit there all night, or you gonna get some shut eye?"

She stared suspiciously at the bed, and at him. "You really think we'll be safe sleeping in the open like this?" she voiced half her trepidations.

"Yeah," Riddick answered easily. "Safer here than elsewhere. We didn't get that far. Anything looking for meat around here has got two big entrees served up free just down the trail. Ain't nothing going to be bothering us tonight." Riddick wasn't as sure as he sounded, but the chances of something else big hunting them were pretty slim. "Besides, you really think a lean-to would stop one of those Gryphyian things?"

She considered that, then sighed. "I guess your right," she acknowledged, stifling another yawn.

"Come on," he ordered. "Can't pull the net over till you're horizontal." His tone was casual, but it left no room for argument. Even so, she hesitated. "Don't make me count."

Her head jerked faintly, his threat registering. Riddick _wasn't_ always right. That much had been established, but he was still running the trip. That wasn't, however, what she was reacting to.

"You sound just like my father," she grinned.

Riddick rolled his eyes and she giggled, the familiarity of the comment easing the tension

"Come on," he repeated more patiently, patting the empty space next to him, and left his arm out in obvious invitation. Regardless of her hesitation at the moment, he knew from experience she wouldn't get to sleep without being in contact with him - not in an open setting like this. It wasn't going to feel natural letting his arm get pinned down, but he knew he could slide her off easily enough once she was asleep, and he hoped it would build on the 'you can trust me' façade he was trying to put up.

She finally obeyed, crawling carefully under the emergency blanket. She helped him pull the netting over, and then finally... gingerly... lay down pillowing her head on his forearm facing the fire. She still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea, trying to keep some space between them, but that wasn't going to work for Riddick. There was a difference between having her lying on his arm and having it stretched out, overextended and near immobile, but so long as she was feeling anxious, neither of them were going to get comfortable.

"Figures," he finally groused blandly. "The first time I'm layin' next to a female since getting out of Altair and I'm in no shape to take advantage of it."

At this she half turned, looking at him uncertainly.

"I'm not going to bite you, girl." He turned his head to look at her. "You seem to forget I want Gallo happy."

He met her gaze without wavering, and felt her relax. She rolled over the rest of the way and snuggled up a little closer, putting her head on his good shoulder, being careful not to touch his chest. He brought his arm up against her back and let his hand lay over her arm... loose and companionably. Sooner she was warm; sooner he could get it back. _Of course, there'd be ways if she was willing_, he mused, but she didn't seem inclined so he didn't think it wise to go there.

What was unexpected was that he kinda wished he could. It wasn't just the dearth of feminine companionship since he'd found himself in Altair. There was that, and in that regard the fact that she was female was all that mattered, but that aspect of his animal he _had_ learned how to control however hard it raged. He wasn't going to stay alive long if he didn't. But while having her this close made him quite aware that it had been awhile, part of this attraction came on a whole different level. The girl had some curves under that little outfit, she'd shown some pluck and resourcefulness, and she _did_ have the guts to tell him - the mass murdering serial killer she thought him to be - "no". _Or at least something close to it,_ he thought with amusement. She really wasn't very good at it, but she tried. That was more than a lot of people would do. He had to admit there was more in that little package next to him than he'd ever guessed, and the thought of getting to know her wasn't nearly as distasteful now. If he thought about it too hard he might even have to consider the possibility he was starting, all things considered, to respect her.

But there was still the issue of money. He needed some, and 25,000 was a nice round number. For the first time since he pulled her out of that malfunctioning cryo tube, he didn't curse her perfume. Not being able to smell more than that bare elusive hint of _her_ helped him keep his mind on business rather then the warm little body next to him, but he wished he had something else to think about. The dim off-circle of the moon, its pale muffled glow revealing rushing clouds pushed by high altitude winds, was the only thing giving any detail to the heavens. The matte featureless sky of cloud covered stars offered no diversion so he closed his eyes instead. He began consciously relaxing his muscles, consciously telling his body to slow down and consciously redirecting his thoughts toward some short term plans. He'd been around enough to have a good idea of the cost of things and he let his mind drift along those lines, idly plotting tentative routes past Breken 4 heading toward the rim. It'd all depend on ships. The further he got, the fewer he'd have to pick from, but it might actually be doable. And if he played it right, he might even have some cash left over to start out on.

Unlike figuring prison breaks, this was a pleasant sort of planning, but Riddick couldn't focus on it exclusively. After the day Coulter'd had he expected, if he let her get close, that she'd pass out again, but she kept moving faintly, little shifts and squirms expressing her restlessness. Some of them were reactions. Frogs, evidently, she could handle, but there was something about that owl 30 meters back in the trees. Every time it hooted, she flinched. He suspected their "quality mattress" was part of it too, but he didn't think either thing was all of it. Something was on her mind. Twice he heard her draw breath as if to speak, only to let it out in a soft sigh, and then finally - out of the blue - she asked quietly, "What did you mean when you said 'Tried to do something good once. Got screwed'?" Her voice was nearly as soft as a breeze through the grass.

_Where did that come from?_

There was a beat, a moment when he could have answered, and then she continued just as quietly. "When Jenner was trying to scare me he said you'd been sentenced to a million years because you'd killed a whole company of mercs just for the fun of it. Did it have anything to do with that?"

Riddick was surprised, unsure how to answer, so he didn't. It wasn't a million years, but the 10,000 he'd been given served the same purpose... no chance at parole, die in the dark - whether by old age or inmate, no one cared. He wasn't intended to see daylight again. Didn't matter that he'd had reason. His evidence had 'disappeared' so no one had been allowed to hear it... not that it would have mattered. There was part of him that wanted to answer her now. Part of him wanted to explain he wasn't the monster people said he was to this girl that might listen, but explaining meant going back there again. It meant remembering again. He'd done that with Jacobson, and what good had it done? What good would it do now?

After a few moments of silence she asked, "Are you awake?"

Riddick held his peace, and after a minute she sighed again. "No, I guess not. You had a hard day. It's just..." She stopped and then sighed heavily. "Good night, big man."

After awhile her restlessness eased and she stopped reacting to the owl. Her breathing evened out and he knew she'd finally fallen asleep, but it was awhile longer before sleep found him.

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**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Anna's pastime - **I love it when you like it *GRIN* because I also get to hear WHY! Yours are my FAVORITE sort of reviews - even when they are critical, because I get to hear what you liked (and get all the associated warm fuzzies an author gets when someone praises their work :), and what you didn't (which I truly appreciate because it helps me improve as an author :). Of course, I haven't seen anything critical the last few chapters, which makes your reviews a double compliment because I know you would mention it if I dropped the ball. Thank you, Anna, for being such a faithful reader and reviewer!

**forestreject** - Alas, you only hurt the ones you love, and I love you for reading and reviewing ;). Please forgive my cruelty. I hope this chapter is an acceptable peace offering :D.

**Tiberius T. -** Thank you, Tiberius. Your review was a wonderfully timely and appreciated encouragement reminding me to get back on track. I was distracted by some other tales that demanded my attention, but they can sit now. Turn About is well overdue for an update and hopefully finish. I appreciate your taking the time to review, and praise at that. Thank you again!

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**My promise to faithful readers:**As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.

The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("_only_" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between stories (you only see 4 of them, unfortunately), 3 kids, (2 of them young; 1 a teen), a husband and the life that contains them all plus a few other responsibilities on the side, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.


	15. Chapter 15: Deeper

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 15**

**Deeper**

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**Acknowledgment: **My thanks to Starnyx for her persistent and patient efforts to help me improve my writing.

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The night seemed to have passed quickly, but Riddick knew it was because he'd been sleeping relatively hard - for him, anyways - nor was he the only one. Not long after Coulter had gone to sleep, Riddick had reclaimed his arm. She roused just enough to move her bag in as a replacement, and then she'd gone still. Although she shifted once or twice over the hours, the previous all-nighter, coupled with being warm and not constantly disturbed by his tending a fire evidently let her sleep deeper than before, to a point below her subconscious need for her security murderer. She stayed close - he'd never lost the feel of her warmth upon his skin - but amazingly, she hadn't insisted on constant contact. That let him sleep a little more deeply as well, if for no other reason than he didn't have to consciously fight for his space on the 'mattress.'

He remembered waking briefly a couple times, once when something in the lake splashed, the other time when his chest twinged with some sleep careless movement. He'd been aware on some level of Coulter's movements, and when something slipped through the trees to the water - predator by movement, but too small to be a threat - and left just as quickly, but there were no warnings, no reasons to really rouse. He couldn't remember a night since Sigma that he'd gotten to spend an entire sleep period with the sole concern being the number of z's he could grab, and it felt good.

Even waking was a lazy affair. As the early morning birds began their serenade to the coming day, Riddick found himself eased toward full awareness by the melodic activity around him rather than any sharp rush of adrenaline or overloud trail companion trying to be useful. It was still dark, but he could make out the rim of the caldera by the changing sky behind it. He lay on his side, arms crossed to play spacer for his chest, and felt no desire to move right off. What rather surprised him about the position was it put Coulter to his back, and his animal had let it happen. Even sleeping, that part of him was usually over vigilant. It wasn't that he'd concluded she could be trusted - trust was a commodity he granted rare to never now days - it was more along the lines that she'd been awarded "no threat" status for the time being. Certainly she'd proven herself an asset, if not an ally of sorts... at least while they had more woods than walls around them.

He lay watching the early morning sky. The late night clouds had cleared leaving a pristine view of the heavens above fading from a deep midnight blue pierced by a single bright unwavering planet to something of a storm shadow hue. As time passed, darkness continued to bleed from the morning until the rim was a jagged, still-darkened profile against paling heavens. Finally, the sky began taking on growing shades of gold until the sun spilled over the horizon, flooding the land with brightness. Riddick couldn't see the sun, but he heard the change as morning officially hit the world around the caldera. Within their hollow stone fortress, however, the failing night clung stubbornly to the walls and buried itself in the depths of the waters. Morning would invade the depths of the caldera, but the sun wouldn't hit their side until it rose high enough to send its rays directly over the edge.

The bird songs faded as they, unrestricted by the rocky walls, abandon the clinging shadows for the new day beyond the stone enclosure leaving an utter quiet behind them. Without their song to sooth him, Riddick watched the early mist that drifted across the face of the lake trapped in twilight and felt a sudden restlessness. A lazy morning might be something of a singular indulgence, but he could only take so much. The quiet, on the other hand, was something he appreciated and was loathe to lose. He shifted to glance at Denise. The secretary had both arms around her 'pillow' and his movement did nothing to rouse her. Perhaps he could do something with the morning and keep his quiet too.

With the greatest care, he eased his bulk off the 'mattress' and out from under the emergency blanket. Silence was not a primary design feature of the silver fabric, but the half damp bedding material underneath didn't contribute so Riddick managed to keep the noise to a minimum. He reached over and tucked the blanket back against her to keep it reflecting her body heat. Nothing considerate there. He just didn't want her to feel the gaping cold spot he'd just created and come looking for him, but the action pulled on old memories recently visited... the mom tucking him in with a story... twitched the dream that could never happen... a wife... a kid. He snarled faintly at the stuff this secretary kept stirring up in his head. _Ain't possible. _ No. His life was killing and running and hiding. Like he told her… not what he'd planned, but it was what it was and wasn't likely to change anytime cut it off there before the memory of Jacobson could say anything. Denise stirred, but she didn't rouse, and Riddick breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Once vertical, he stretched carefully. The networks of lines and seams on his chest made it clear that they were moving under protest while the residual ache in his arm and shoulder didn't recommend anything strenuous in the immediate future. That level of pain wasn't anything he couldn't handle... so long as he didn't have to fight.

He looked over the mist shrouded lake marveling at the utter stillness of the morning water. It called to him... invited him... to be a part of it, if only for a short time, and he made his way to the 'dock'. Even the faint crunch of the sand under his feet seemed overloud in the heavy quiet, but his steps went silent as he hit the stone. The lake life beneath the surface startled, sending ripples waking away from the rock as he moved toward the end of the formation, but their panic was forbidden to mar the pristine peace of the caldera. Even as Riddick stood and watched, the evidence of their hasty escape was diffused into the vast mass of calm. The ripples went out, and out, and out, dissipating, diminishing, disappearing into the mist and did not return.

Save for the ethereal veils of vapor drifting across the surface, the lake was so still it could have been a sculpture, and for the water, the artist had used a mirror... a flawless mirror to reflect the great dark walls silhouetted above it, giving them a presence within the lake as well as around it. They were heavy and massive, a weight wholly different from the forest where he and Coulter spent their first night... where he had crouched beneath the living mass of the great woods and found a fleeting moment of true tranquility. The caldera offered it as well, but this peace was different. The calm of this place came with an enduring authority... an ancient hallowed weight that was solid and unyielding. The caldera had likely been here before the planet was terra formed and seeded, and it would likely outlast the civilization grown out of the colony responsible. It would certainly outlast him. Riddick couldn't explain, even to himself. The ancient caldera evoked a strange feeling of inviolable peace. It was strength... it was secure... it was timeless. It whispered of things eternal...

Riddick shook himself from such deep thoughts. It wasn't worth thinking past the life he had now. He was just better off breathing as long as he could. He settled himself on the end of the 'dock', his chest twinging as he did, drawing his attention.

He studied the patchwork that made up his chest in the dusky light. The cat really had done a number on him. The livid colors were less evident in the low light, but as he ran his fingers over the seams, tracing their paths, he was able to sort out even more of what Coulter had done to put him back together. Where his fingers brushed over hard crusty seams, he knew she'd found edges clean enough to pull back together and glue... and there were a lot, especially around the outside perimeter. There were also ones where he could feel a thin ridging of artificially generated flesh below a rough seam where she dar-genned deeper layers, and then sealed the skin with glue. These dual method seals were frequent and scattered, skipping along seams almost randomly, but Riddick realized what Coulter had been doing. Glue wasn't for big wounds. Glue was there for minor to medium cuts so the dar-gen could be saved for bigger emergencies, but this damage was even more than a portable dar-gen was intended to be used on... and the device only held half a charge. Coulter had been making do on a grand scale.

The glued parts weren't a real concern, however. If they'd held this long, they'd keep holding as long as he didn't do anything grossly stupid. It was the rest. Riddick didn't know exactly how dar-gens did what they did, but he knew they had limitations. Commercial grade dar-gens could 'heal' big wounds because they used the person's own stem cells and sophisticated programs that calculated intricate biological maps to rebuild things the way they ought to be. The results? New cells, new nerves, new capillary systems, hair follicles, sweat glands, everything, all neatly planned and connected... no scars, no gaps, good as new. If done right, if the equipment and doctor were good enough, there'd be no visible sign of the injury when it was done. Might still take therapy - physical and/or psychological depending on the severity of the original damage and how a person got it, but bodily? They were fine.

The portable dar-gens weren't nearly so fancy nor did they work as quickly. Simple things like Coulter's blisters, it actually "healed", creating a quick seamless join between the exposed flesh of the wound by layering in some sort of material that sealed the wound and accelerated tissue growth to "weld" the wound together while it healed. This meant the ridging he felt under the glued wounds would disappear as soon as the repair 'naturalized'. These capabilities made portables ideal for closing blood vessels, sealing deep wounds and covering burns, but portables didn't map. For serious injuries, portables were more stop gap... seal-it-up-to-save-a-life-till-help-comes at best. In the hands of a trained medic a portable dar-gen could repair an artery faster than a man could bleed out. Even an average Joe could cover a burn with a protective layer of skin until it could be treated just by reading the instruction book. But gaping wounds... missing flesh... that was another matter.

If a wound were too big the bonding material served as a neutral lattice of something like tissue that tried to encourage healing while it held the wound together and sealed it until it could be treated... and there were a good many places on his chest where he simply felt thick, heavy tissue surfaced with unnaturally smooth skin. These reconstructions were broad - differing widths and shapes - but all wider or more damaged than either glue or the dar-gen were made to handle. These were the places Coulter had been forced to "fill in" - literally - and these were the ones that concerned him... these patches and the overbroad seams filled with empty "tissue" that was never going to naturalize completely.

A commercial dar-gen could salvage the 'filler' by infusing and programming stem cells within the lattice, but only if it was done before the empty "tissue" hardened and "died" - a process that began within days of being applied to the wound. After that, the dead synthetic 'tissue' still served to keep the wound sealed to prevent infection while natural healing continued, but the mass also acted as a barrier to the formation of healthy tissue. Eventually the body would reject it and slough it off, but by then it would have been there long enough for natural tissue to heal around it... conformed to it. Instead of healthy tissue, the body would heal with a chunk missing or warped with scar tissue. It'd be smaller than the original wound, but it'd be a scar nonetheless, and scar tissue didn't stretch. It didn't work.

Another side effect of her efforts was the bizarre piece meal gaps in sensation. Even as his fingers followed the paths of the injuries, the sense of being touched leaped from place to place with gaps in-between although his fingers never lost contact with the skin - one more limitation of a portable dar-gen. Without the differentiation and mapping ability of the commercial versions, portables couldn't do anything for nerve regeneration. Coulter was right. If he didn't get to a commercial grade dar-gen within the next few days, there'd be massive scarring, but he'd lose more than a little natural looking skin. There'd be permanent damage that'd become a liability he couldn't afford.

Despite that, he couldn't help recognizing what the different textures that marred his chest now represented... couldn't help thinking about what had put them there. Coulter'd called them even. A life for a life, but there were differences in their contributions... glaringly significant ones that were hard to ignore even though he wanted to. He'd pulled her out of a broken cryotube, shared some air. A little pain and inconvenience at best. It didn't really matter that her motives were likely as self serving as his own. She'd risked her life to save him, taking on a beast that could have killed her. And she'd done a lot more than share enough air to pull him back to this side of living. There was a part of him that wished the bio-guide wasn't dead and dumped. She said she'd had training, and there was circumstantial evidence for what she's done... two missing Anti-All, two Stabrafins, the Clotto internal, the empty bags of Gen-Hem... Might have been interesting to see just what all she'd had to do... just how much direction she'd needed. It would be easier to dismiss her efforts if he _knew_ the bio-guide had been the one making the decisions, although he was reasonably sure using glue with the dar-gen had to be her own idea, forced by the low charge. On the other hand, the less he knew, the simpler it was he to pretend it didn't matter. _She_ was the one that called them even!

Riddick let his hand drop to his lap as he closed his eyes and let his head fall back with a faint growl of frustration. He was the cold blooded killer. He was the Big Evil! Why should it matter if she'd saved his life at all? He was the one who killed for the pleasure of it... the one who'd stick you just to watch you bleed out... who'd killed 500 men on a whim. He was the one who didn't give a damn who died or why. Except he wasn't... not completely... and this girl - the one that'd saved his life not once, but twice in the same day - had somehow seen that... maybe started to believe that... and what he had planned for her would probably get her killed just the same.

It was really all _her_ fault! He would have never run into the cats if it weren't for her. If she hadn't been there, he'd have left Jenner and crew in a pile and never felt the need to make disdainfully vindictive points regarding his opinion of mercs to an air-headed secretary. He'd never been traveling at such a ridiculously slow pace. He'd have been out of their territory before the cats had even realized he was crossing it, or else holed up some place defensible while his shoulder healed. It really was _all_ her fault. None of this would have happened if she'd just died in the crash with everyone else... if he'd just left her in the tube... if she hadn't told him she was worth $25,000... if he hadn't decided she was worth hauling out because he wanted that money in _his_ pocket.

Riddick shook his head at his logic. He'd love to shift the blame, but his gut was just too honest. There'd been decisions he could have made... bloodier ones, quieter ones, less fragrant ones, less lucrative ones, but he hadn't. He'd chose to go for the carrot, and that'd put him here. So what _did_ it matter that she'd saved his life... twice? He was the one who wasn't supposed to care. _She _was the one that'd called them even!

But somehow it did. He was tired of irony.

His hand rested on something hard and stiff in his lap, and he looked down, glad for the distraction. Blood. There was a good bit of blood dried into his cargos - he refused to revisit the source - giving the front a camouflage-like splotching, but this pattern wasn't going to hide him. Quite the opposite. Now that it was good and dry, little bits of blood were going to flake off advertising he was walking wounded... again... and this time he was in no position to deal with what might be drawn in. It wasn't quite as blatant as walking in a bloody boot, but it would advertise just the same. He needed to get them washed out... rinsed at the very least.

Riddick looked out over the lake, its dark surface inviting him to join the caldera's peace. It seemed to promise there was no unrest that the great calm of the lake could not swallow. No issues that the drifting mists upon the surface could not veil away for a time. It offered to let him become a part of that ancient peace. He couldn't stay. He knew that already, but to feel the almost sacred tranquility he'd found in the forest that night one more time... The caldera offered that.

It was a conscious desire and Riddick acted. He pulled off his boots and socks, and then quietly eased off the end of the 'dock', careful not to disturb the peace or the secretary still nestled in bed. The water invaded his pants, a cold refreshing shock as it enveloped his legs to just past his waist as his feet hit bottom. Despite his bulk, the ripples that expanded outward from his entry were only marginally greater than those made earlier by the escaping water life, and Riddick watched as they spread out into the mists and disappeared.

Just to play nice he slipped around the corner and recovered the pot, setting it upon the stone. He was sure Coulter would figure out a way to get it eventually, but there would likely be no end to the complaints if it involved her getting wet again. This took care of both problems. From there he walked slowly past the dock, and just kept walking. The water grew deeper, the cold reaching up to wrap the aches of his chest and then his shoulder. His pace was such that he disturbed the water little more than a piece of breeze blown wood until the depth finally permitted him to sink beneath the surface, leaving barely a ripple to mark his exit from the world of air.

His view changed instantly, from misted mirror to smoky glass. In the distance, he could pick up the pale thickness of the slanting underwater rim that formed the shallows around the caldera, and beneath it, sheer cliffs falling into the depths. He positioned himself horizontal, the air in his lungs and meager body fat counter balancing the density of his muscles to a state near equilibrium. A few lazy kicks propelled him forward, and the rim fell away gradually until suddenly it was gone. In a single moment he went from solid ground beneath him to staring into infinity. Riddick felt his gut twist at the sudden height, his brain briefly dealing with the concept of hundreds of empty feet below him. It was the same lurch he would get stepping off the edge of the ramp for a HALO deployment back in the not so distant day... that surge of adrenaline that prepared the body for the rapid plummeting freefall from a high altitude and fast deceleration of a low opening chute. As many advances as had been made in detection and security, there was still no substitute for a no metal stealth suit and a thin fabric chute to slip in behind the lines without setting off alarms. But there was no freefalling here.

He glided out over the vast depth until his vision saw nothing but down. He couldn't even make a guess as to the depth in the low light of morning. The cliffs went down and down and down into a darkness that might be a bottom layered with black sand... or it might just be more down. The cliffs were huge rough hewn things that bulged and swelled into twisted formations spotted with shadowy recesses. In some places long wide cracks ran vertically down the wall creating deep clefts of unfathomable darkness, and scattered about - embedded in the crack's walls, glimmering out of the darkness - were glints of light that twinkled as he moved like stars in the night. Whatever it was, it was smooth and reflective and appeared to be faceted. One would think if it was worth mining, someone would have ripped the lake apart already - designated wilderness or not. Nature lost out when greed was involved, at least that was his experience.

Riddick just floated, taking in the immensity of the watery world below him. As volcanoes went, this had been a relatively small one. The lake was, maybe, a klick and a half wide, but as small as it was, in his mind's eye he could imagine the molten magma that had once filled this great hollow core, could imagine the immense power that this mountain had once claimed... the power to hurl stones for miles, to reshape the landscape, to blot out the sun. Even the eruption of a volcano as small as this one had been would have been spectacular to witness, and there was something to be said that a force so powerfully destructive and violent could become so great a sanctuary of peace and tranquility.

Riddick shifted up and changed out his air. Then he up ended and dived, trading the pristine stillness of the surface for the enveloping silence of the deep. He stroked down, taking it easy, but the meds, the chill and the adrenaline rush had dulled his pain. He angled to the wall, aiming for a dark recess where the glimmers sparkled intriguingly. He felt the changing atmospheres as he pushed deeper, the water pressing in upon him with more insistence the greater his depth. By the time he reached his goal, the constriction was not unlike a pressure suit, save that those were designed to keep a layer of warmth between the wearer and the environment. Here it _was_ the environment... a mountain lake that never received a full day's warmth, pressing against his skin. Cold was a danger. Hypothermia could make a man do stupid things long before it actually killed him, but Riddick seemed better suited to withstand cold than most. He seemed better suited to a lot of things. His teachers at Sigma 3 had been constantly surprised. He took whatever they taught him, learned it fast, and then exceeded all their expectations. Cold water survival was no exception. Some of it was muscle isolation and isometrics. Some of it was bio-conditioning. All of it was mind over body.

When someone had the bright idea to have a cold water exposure contest at the end of survival training, Riddick even beat the instructor. The lake they held it in sat at 14 degrees Celsius and graduates were equipped with internal thermoniters. When a person's core temp dropped below 35 Celsius, clinical hypothermia, they were out of the game. They started losing men around the 45 minute mark. Riddick was declared the winner when the instructor was pulled at 1 hour and 48 minutes. By that time Riddick had decided a cold water exposure contest was the most void brained competition anyone could have ever possibly thought up, and he'd be damned if he was going to the leave the door open for someone to challenge the champion. He endured long enough to round out the hour and added another half just to be certain no one else was going to ask _him_ to their rematch. When he climbed out, he had never felt so cold. His legs would hardly bear his weight and forget sensation, but his thermoniter confirmed his core hadn't even begun dropping below 37.2 degrees until the last 10 minutes (see author's note). Compared to that memory, this lake almost felt warm, but he wasn't planning to stay overlong.

The opening to the recess was a narrow vertical rip in the rock face half again as wide as his shoulders. He slipped into the shadows and braced himself against the walls while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the low light. Within the crack, the temperature shifted ever so slightly to the warmer. There was heat coming from somewhere... the volcano that formed the caldera wasn't, it appeared, completely dormant. As his pupils dilated, the blackness faded to shades of slate and he moved a little deeper into the shadows drawn by an enticing gleam. What he found, extruding from the rough stone wall where it had been pushed out as the magma hardened, was a crystal about the diameter of his pinky. There were a few others scattered here and there, some a mere glimmer barely peaking from beneath the matrix that contained them, others protruding - up to several centimeters. Riddick grasp one of the longer structures, and applied some leverage, breaking it off at the base.

Turning in the water, he faced the light... what little there was... and inspected his prize. The stone appeared to be nearly black, but maybe more clear than opaque. Might be worth checking above water. Riddick glanced up towards the surface, and his gaze was filled with a huge fish instead. Topside the creature was nearly black, while below the belly was a pearlescent grey. Just above the line where the two colors blended, was a bright line of scarlet and turquoise spots, like embedded gems. And the spots weren't merely iridescent, they actually shown with a pure color in the darkness. The fish was clearly kin to the one he and Coulter had eaten for dinner, except this one was nearly 10 times the length. It was _huge_! The fish glided past the opening of the fissure, and if it saw Riddick in the darkness, it wasn't concerned. The stone in Riddick's hand became secondary.

He pushed the crystal in his pocket with the jewelry and drifted to the front of the fissure. Bracing himself against the sides to hold his position. He watched the fish continue along the wall, the power of its tail propelling it with casual ease - a sovereign surveying his kingdom. As it approached, lesser fish would dart from cracks and crevices and vanish into the grayness below, but the master of the lake was not to be bothered with such lesser denizens at the moment. Riddick couldn't help but smile. As the fish cruised along, it was anything but humble for while it was indeed power under control, it positively exuded attitude. This monster was top of the food chain... the king of the lake... and it knew it.

The constrictive feeling in his head and neck warned Riddick that his body was starting to think his O2 levels were dropping below optimum, and maybe it wasn't such a bright idea to be stressing his brain so soon after cracking it against a tree. Whether he liked it or not, he'd learned some injuries weren't wise to push through. He glanced reluctantly back up to the surface. It seemed a world away and despite logic, he truly had no desire to rejoin it just yet. Up there meant hitting the trail again. Up there meant dealing with Coulter again. Up there meant taking up his life again. It all had to happen. It was inevitable. He just didn't want it to happen yet. But what choice was there? He was going to need air. Maybe if he was lucky, Coulter wouldn't be up yet, wouldn't be freaking at finding herself alone yet, because if she was... He shook his head, feeling a fresh brush of cold on his cheeks as the movement displaced the layer of water warmed by contact with his skin. Didn't matter. In this case there were no choices, no options, not if he wanted to keep breathing...

Or were there?

A meter and a half long trout was curious enough, but what Riddick saw next was equally strange. As he looked up his peripheral vision caught motion - something small and dark headed down from above - and he shifted his gaze to identify it. It had an odd jerking motion as it moved, alternately looking larger and then small again, which Riddick quickly identified as the use of wings better designed for air flight, but that didn't seriously hinder the animal's mobility. It would swim down a few meters before ducking into a dip or recess, and then a moment later it would emerge to crawl warily down the rock face a short distance before launching into swim mode for a few more meters. It was clearly cautious, but considering what had been swimming around a moment ago, Riddick couldn't blame it. And for all its apparent awkwardness, the creature was making good time. Riddick watched, his brain trying to reconcile he was seeing with what he knew, then concluded he had just learned something new... bats could swim. Not just paddle across the surface to shore if they found a landing wetter than intended, but actually dive and swim. At least these ones could.

He suddenly realized exactly where he was. Last night, when he saw the bats emerging into the dusk before Denise took her swim... he was directly below that cliff. The colony wasn't _at_ the waterline. It was _below_ it! He watched the little beast work its way down until it took a final leap off the cliff face and swung around to enter the fissure, only to come face to face with Riddick. Riddick actually heard its little shrill of surprise, muted by the water, as a short stream of bubbles issued from its mouth, and then it shot away with a single, powerful flap of its little wings. It launched straight up, catching the lip of the crevice where it scrambled a short distance over the rock away from him before molding its minuscule body into a depression. There it went immobile, staring at him. Against the dark rock it was nearly invisible save for the twin pin-prick gleams of its tiny eyes and a faint liquid silver glimmer as if it had air trapped under its fur, which it probably did.

Riddick had only been offered a brief close up, but he had already made a few observations. The creature was small - it could have nestled, with wings folded, comfortably in the palm of his hand - but it wasn't of the same dainty type he had encountered in the forest. This little bat was sturdier and built a little thicker, which made perfect sense given it needed the strength and durability to power through a thicker medium than air to get to and from its colony. The liquid silver glimmer was probably due to an oil that protected its fur from the water and the elements. In fact, there was a very good possibility that when the thing climbed out of the water, it was nearly as dry as when it climbed in. It was a bat perfectly suited to accessing a colony with an underwater entrance.

It wasn't too hard to imagine how that could have happened, assuming the bats hadn't been genetically designed that way in the first place. If the water built up to its current level gradually, the colony could have started above water, but as the water level slowly rose, they got used to having to duck through and then swim a little and then swim a little deeper to get to their cave. It would have become a behavior passed on through the generations, and as time passed, physical traits that helped them survive the new conditions would have become more prevalent... stronger lungs, oilier fur, thicker bones, beefier muscles. He wasn't sure if they would qualify as a new species or not... if taken away from the unique conditions that promoted those traits, they might just revert back to type within a few generations, but they were certainly something quite different now.

Riddick stared back at the little bat. It had been headed somewhere in this fissure, and no amount of natural selection was going to give it gills. Wherever it was going, there had to be breathable air. Maybe he _didn't_ have to go topside. Riddick smiled. It was man vs. beast. It had lost air. He was running low. Who would break first? He eased back a bit and relaxed, letting passive pressure against the stone hold him in place, minimizing his O2 need as much as possible. The seconds ticked by as the constriction in Riddick's head grew, as the want level shifted from uncomfortable to something closer to need...

All of a sudden, the little bat made a dash into the crack. It forgo the use of its wings to scramble along the rock like a mouse running along the wall in zero gravity, the claws on its feet and wing tips ideally suited to finding purchase on the rough surface. Riddick lost sight of it almost as soon as it entered the darkness, but not before he marked its bearings. It wasn't going to be sly. It would take the shortest route to air and safety.

The roof of crack rounded out, and the bat had been headed up, not deeper. Of course there was no guarantee Riddick would be able to access the colony, but Riddick turned, casting his gaze upward as well. His eyes readjusted quickly, and he knew he'd need to make a decision soon. If he couldn't find air here, if the colony entrance was nothing he could fit through, he still had to make it back to the surface. A little more peace wasn't worth risking his life, but as he studied the fissure roof he realized a portion of the darkness above was paler than the rest - and had an ever so faint blue green hue where there should have been no way to see color. He would have never noticed it if he hadn't been looking for it, and as he spotted it, it shimmered as if he were seeing light on the surface of water... and something had just disturbed it.

Using the bat's crawling speed to estimate the distance, Riddick made a judgment call. The opening was both near enough and big enough to accommodate him. He didn't wait to second guess himself. Riddick began climbing, using his arms to pull himself up. He was near weightless in the water so there was little strain on them other than their overhead position, but that was enough to irritate his chest and shoulder fiercely. He persisted. He wasn't going to risk running into anything in the dark.

Suddenly he felt his arms take on weight, and a moment later Riddick's head emerged into a dim air filled chamber. His little guide was nowhere to be seen, but its presence was more than confirmed. In the distance, faint squeaks and chitters indicated a large number of bats settling in. It would appear his guide was a straggler although Riddick had no cause to complain about his tardiness. The colonies sleepy complaints bounced about their chamber instantly creating a rough shape in his mind. The chamber he was in was roughly rounded, rising around the edges, one end connecting to a larger chamber that both dropped and climbed from the tunnel entrance, but that wasn't the information he acted on. The sound also meant life... air!

Quality was another matter entirely! With his first breath Riddick nearly choked. The place reeked with a ripe blend of fresh and fermented bat guano, bat bodies, bat piss and something else that smelled botanical, all with a strength that nearly crowded out the desperately needed oxygen. In-between breaths Riddick refused to let himself gag, and as he looked around, the stench slowly numbed his nose.

He shouldn't be able to see, but the faint blue green glow that had identified the hole spilled from the opening to the main chamber. By its dim light he could see the stone around the pool was relatively bare, so he pulled himself up. He regretted it instantly, the action sending sharp searing pains across his chest, through his arm and shoulder and up through his head. He knew what was happening. The pain killer was wearing off. But he was here, so he might as well look around.

He barely had enough room to sit without scraping his head on the ceiling, but the position gave him the height to see over the lip into the main chamber. The view was simply astonishing. It was indeed a large chamber... a great misshapen bubble in the hardened magma that was lined with spidery vines clinging to the walls. They twisted and twined and tangled like a horde of lazy snakes... and they glowed with a pale turquoise light. Thin stems from the ceiling dangled pom-pom like structures, and as the bats jostled the strings, a faint shimmering powder sprinkled down.

On the floor, shoots spiking up from a floor of soupy guano offered trumpet shaped structures that seemed designed to collect the powder. There were a few of these things, ones that had climbed a stalagmite and twined down a stalactite, that didn't glow... that were different. The pop-poms looked more like an octopus with tentacles hanging down. The trumpets were tilted, with stems that looked like a striped ribbon. Plants caught in a drip line, slowly encased in the minerals carried in the water. Like the strangler, the plant inside had long ago rotted away, but their shape had been preserved and they became a foundation for further formations. It was like something out of a fairy tale, a dark hidden land filled with secretive creatures and magical plants.

Plants. Plants to replenish the oxygen. It was the only thing that made sense, because the bats would have killed themselves by CO2 poisoning long ago otherwise. It was dark world, totally isolated and wholly unique, and with its discovery, Riddick was no longer limited to the surface for his air, but despite it he couldn't be staying... the aching warned against it. A few atmospheres below the surface was not a good place to be hindered just for a little peace and quiet. Filling his lungs with the wretched air one last time, he slipped off the stone letting the dark water swallow him again, and let the momentum carry him down.

At the opening of the crevice, he paused to look across the lake and take in the great stillness once more. He was loathe to give it up, but his chest had remembered it was hurt, and it wasn't going to get any better. He was just about to head up when he noticed the King returning, having reversed his patrol. Riddick watched the huge fish approach and held himself still wondering how close the creature would come. Master of its domain, it either didn't see Riddick in the crevice, or it didn't care as it slid through the water like a black and silver shadow.

As it came alongside the crevice, Riddick saw its silver eye flick over him, but its pace and course did not change. Didn't care, then. On an impulse, Riddick reached out to touch the monarch... to run his fingers down the slick slate side...

The next he knew, he was crashing against the rocks. Shining bubbles exploded from his nose and lips as his breath was knocked out of him, sailing upwards, a liquid silver flood that overflowed the cracks and pits in the rocks, catching in scattered pockets on the ceiling as it raced for the bat cave. Riddick's fingers had never reached their goal, but touched the fish he had... or rather the fish had touched him. His hand had been mere centimeters from contact when the great tail flicked. Riddick barely even caught the motion - it was that fast - but he _felt_ it. The sudden contact of slick muscled flesh and bone across his face and chest as he was smashed back, and then, the King was gone.

Riddick shook his head and clamped down on a moan; likewise, the more critical impulse to inhale and refill his lungs. His chest felt like it had been hit with a log... bright arcs of pain radiating from layers of agony. His pain receptors begged him to hold still while they dealt with the overload, but his lungs were feeling the sudden lack. His O2 level had gone from comfortable to urgent in the space of a moment. The bat cave was just above, but it meant using his arms to maneuver through the rocks again, then coming back down and still needing to make it to the surface. The surface was further, but it was a straight shot, no arms required, at least until he reached air. Riddick pulled himself to the opening, groaning silently, and launched upwards.

Every movement seemed tied to his chest. Even his kicks seemed to twitch the muscles through his pectorals, and the cold water was no longer a balm. The currents of his passage were like fingers stroking over the tender flesh. Riddick ignored the pain, focused on the glimmering surface above him and the air it represented. His exertion was burning his remaining oxygen fast. His lungs demanded that he inhale as his vision began to narrow, and then he broke the surface. This was not a peaceful and silent reentry to the world of air. Riddick broke surface with splash and a flail as he sucked in a great lungful of the cool mist hovering over the water. Breathing had never felt so good... even if every rip across his chest _was_ trying to convince him it had been upgraded to life threatening.

And in almost the same moment he heard _her_.

"Riddick? Is that you?"

She was up.

"Riddick?" he heard her voice raised to the edge of panic. She was on the 'dock' where he'd left his boots. "Riddick? Please tell me that's you I hear out there splashing! I can't see anything. Riddick? Riddick!"

The peace of the caldera was gone, fled back into the shadows, waiting for them to leave and night to fall again. "Yeah, it's me," Riddick announced, trying not to sound breathless, just to stop the shouting. He pushed the pain back and aimed for the camp. Even limiting the use of his arms made the short swim a trial. Coulter was standing on the dock searching the water and, as soon as he broke from the mist, she jumped joyfully and clapped her hands together like an idiot school girl.

"Riddick!" she cried happily, and then after watching him for a moment she settled and quickly made her way off the dock. He half expected her to rush to the shore to greet him, but instead she head for the fire. He sloshed his way through the water feeling the transition to gravity pull hardest on his injuries, and aimed for the rock by the shore. He leaned on it heavily, then turned and sat down as she approached him, relief and disapproval so sharp in her eyes that it was reaching out making him understand, under no uncertain terms, she'd been worried. Worried about _him_...

"Yeah, I know. I'm pushing it," he snarled.

But she didn't say anything. She only offered the doser.

Riddick stared at the little device. Considering the day ahead... considering how he'd managed to start it... _I hate drugs_, he growled to himself, but he nodded.

She put a hand on his good shoulder as he tipped his head slightly and she positioned the doser against his neck. He'd have stayed upright without her, but he felt her grip tighten as the drug hit his brain, and he swayed a bit. There just wasn't two ways about it. It felt strange having someone looking out for him. The girl was right. The sooner they got out of here, the better.

But Riddick was in no immediate hurry to vacate their camp. He _had _been pushing it, even if completely unintentionally, and the steep hill was one obstacle he had no desire to push through just yet. There were still things to be done. Coulter put away her doser and started messing with the fire. It was dead, but they still had coals underneath and when she dug down and found them, she evidently remembered enough from her camping days to try to do something with them. She was on her second attempt to get the fire going again when he forced himself up from the rock.

Vertigo came and went, and then he set out for the dock. After he collected his boots and the pot, he joined Denise at the fire, which wasn't... yet... but she was getting close. With a little input, she finally managed, and she built it up to something decent as Riddick got the dry gear back on his feet. The warmth felt good. His feet were the only part of him that was dry, and the chill of the lake clung to him in the shadow of the walls, but it was a temporary condition. Already there was a border of light across the rim. The solid unity of the silhouette had been lost to shadowed roughness that was now being transformed into the stark contrast of cracks and stone and crevices by the sun's peeking rays. By noon the entire caldera would be swimming in light, but by then they would be gone.

Once the fire was going, Riddick fished out ration bars and they busied themselves while they ate. Coulter picked up her sewing while Riddick reclaimed the filament from the "fishing gear". He had to admit - to himself - that the 'net' was a decent example of making do and packed it whole, just trimming the handle to fit in the duffle. He didn't know exactly what, if anything, they might need it for up the road, but it could be dismantled later if it came to that. He wished they could use the stuff for its intended purpose one more time - fish for breakfast would've been a fine to start the day- but he didn't want to stick around for as long as it could take. He wanted out of the woods... off the planet... for so many reasons.

Although it was day and the shadow of the wall made their light a dimmer kind, it still gave Coulter a whole lot more to work with than the night before and she appeared to be making good time. She was focused and that kept her tongue maneuvering around her lip instead of shaping words, which suited him. He reviewed his mental maps as he carefully wound the fishing filament back on its little reel trying to let the movement translate past his elbows as little as possible. His arm wasn't as bad as it had been. It was starting to realize its flesh was whole and intact, but his shoulder remained bruised and abused beneath the veneer of pain killer and his chest would be an issue one way or another until they could reach a commercial dar-gen. That would be a pricey fix. Medical care always cost more than it should, but he couldn't go to a hospital. He'd have to find a street doc... the kind willing to accept a tip to make sure DNA records and procedure logs got wiped from their systems... and those kind didn't offer discounts. He hoped the jewelry in his pocket would pull in enough to cover it.

Coulter wasn't done with his tank top by the time Riddick finished his chores, and he was tempted to let her keep working, but they need to move, pain or no pain, was starting to settle in. They hadn't been slacking, not really, but the passage of time was an enemy. Sooner or later the authorities _would_ go to check the wreckage. Sooner or later they _would_ realize Richard B Riddick wasn't among the bodies. When that happened, the difficulty level of getting off planet would increase exponentially. He'd just as soon not have to deal with that complication.

"Pack it up. Time to move," he growled.

She looked up, startled, and then glanced at the sun creeping down the rock face and nodded. "Then we best get you wrapped back up." She consolidated the sewing supplies, all but his knife, and folded them in the fabric with her needle. Then, instead of handing him the bundle to pack, she handed him his knife and knelt to put her sewing project in the duffle herself, trading it for the med kit. He knew without asking what she had in mind. Might be wise, but he wasn't sure he liked her thinking she should be making decisions involving him. On the other hand, it was say no or let it go, because there weren't any alternatives.

He stayed close mouthed as she opened the box and pulled out her supplies. He let her inspect the places she'd glued and dab them with antibiotic crème. When she was done, Riddick helped hold the pads in place as she began the careful process of re-wrapping his torso. As he did, he glanced at the damage under the thin gauze again. This was nothing like the few layers of skin he'd regenerated on her feet. This much tissue damage... There were reasons this hurt bad enough he was willing to risk her pain killers.

That offered a side thought. Might be worth keeping that little doser of hers when he dropped her off... might be worth getting it analyzed. Whatever she had didn't cut all the pain, but it didn't mess with his thinking or his senses either. It'd be worth knowing what was in it.

As soon as the pads were secure he put his hands up on his head again, and the ache flared. He set his jaw against it, as she tried, awkwardly, to get the Spyder Wrap snug around his bulk without getting too personal. After a couple wraps she paused. "That's not a comfortable position is it?"

"Tryin' ta make it easy."

But she shook her head. "That's okay. I'll get a better wrap with them down anyway." When he raised an eyebrow she added, "Believe me, you're already helping just by sitting there. If you recall, the last time I did this, you were unconscious. I can manage if we both relax, I just..." she was hesitant, "I need to get in... closer." She had a point, so Riddick dropped his hands to a more comfortable position his knees, leaving a gap beneath his arms, and - after confirming the little gun remained in her holster - nodded slightly. She adjusted the pads and then shifted until her knees nestled against his thighs, her lower legs bridging his ankles as he sat cross-legged by the fire. From there she began wrapping again, carefully positioning each strip over the pads. Each time she reached behind him it was a full embrace, and he found her hair in his face... found her scent teasing him again.

Riddick forbore the tickle to breathe slow and deep through his nose, trying to coax something identifiable from the floral montage that dominated. There were several notes he thought would be recognizable if he'd ever studied the scents of flowers - they were that distinct - and other scents that floated through as harmonies and accents, but _her_ scent..._._ He focused, trying to pick out the parts that were distinctly hers from the botanical avalanche. It was so garbled among the flowers... that faint tantalizing hint of mammalian complexity, of something that thought it knew him... But try as he might, he just couldn't isolate that which was _her, _but he began to realize why.

Studying the smell this close, this long, he began to realize the capsule in her arm wasn't just covering up her scent. It was truly combining with it at a glandular level. The main blend of florals stayed pure giving the Channel 15-29 its distinctive smell, but a number of the accents were actually combining with elements of hers, warping it, creating a new scent altogether. He understood now why she had to go through such a lengthy sitting to discover her 'base' scent. If any of these subtler components were to go sour when merging with hers, it'd throw off the whole blend. They had to find a base that stayed nice once it altered. His respect for the science behind the whole mess soared, as did his resolve to cram it down the throat of the scientists who invented it if he ever met them. Riddick knew if he stayed in Coulter's company long enough, he could probably learn to pick out the subtler threads and read them, but as soon as she took that damn capsule out of her arm and put in a different one he'd be starting over.

It wasn't worth the effort. He shook his head faintly as Coulter shifted to the side. Once they hit Breken 4, they'd be going their separate ways... one way or another.

When she was finished, fastening the tail of the wrap required her to move behind him, and she did quite carelessly. Riddick stiffened faintly, but she was oblivious, focused on her task, and when she was done her hands moved up to his shoulder and started in on what was becoming a morning ritual. With the meds between him and the ache, Riddick didn't feel her probing of his pain tolerance as keenly and a little later she settled in to work the battered joint carefully. Both hands worked in tandem, their careful rhythm easing his caution, and then when she was done... when they had finished dismantling the camp and were ready to hit the trail again... she picked up the duffle and pulled the shorter handles over her arms to wear it like a backpack.

"You're not thinkin' you're gonna heft that all day."

"I'll carry it as long as I can, but I can at least get it out of here."

Riddick glanced up the hill. He'd let her try.

"Then move out."

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**-OoO-**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**THANKS:**

**Adastrea** - Yes, I promise, more is coming! Thank you for the review and the encouragement :).

**Tiberius** **T**. - Soon is relative - lol - but I have and will post more. Thank you for the continued encouragement! Reviews are a sweet reminder that I have made a commitment and must finish what I have started because people ARE waiting.

**Stephanie** **Christina** **Thayunai** - It's such a compliment that you would keep checking back. Sorry that it is necessary, but thank you so much for your perseverance. I hope I will reward it soon (relatively speaking). I'm thinking Saved by Grace will be the next one I tackle, but I'll have to see which one wants it most when Turn About is done. Thank you to for the compliments on my description. I've always loved authors that could help me 'see' the story and it's a delight to hear I am succeeding at following in their footsteps :). And I do recommend looking into some survival techniques. There's a lot on the web, and not only is it fascinating, but it might even be useful someday. While researching this, I've decided one of my goals is to learn to make a fire without matches :).

**prettytightkid** - Thanks for the compliment and the review. Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long, but I hope this one kept you reading :).

**Tiberius** **T.** - Yes... finally... and chapter 16 is in progress. I haven't given up. Thank you for not doing so!

**RaB's5** - Thanks! High praise and I hope this last installment was worth waiting for. It's been fun. Denise is not the sort you normally find in Riddick's company so it has been fun exploring how their characters would interact and develop. Hope I can keep you glued for a little longer :)

**forestreject** - Hehe - there's some times I'm sure he wants to pat her right into the ground, but where's the pay out in that. Thanks for the review and the giggle :D

**WorshipperWarrior** - Thank you so much. I'm so anxious to get Turn About done, but other things keep cropping up. It is so encouraging to know you are willing to keep reading in spite of my pitiful updating schedule. I won't say I'll have it done soon. But I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. If you can just bear with me a little longer... :). And thanks so much for the prayer, appreciated and desired, they are!

**NOTES:**

Regarding Riddick's cold water endurance skills, before you tell me they are unbelievable, I invite you to watch the Special Opts section of the show Fight Science by National Geographic which just may be available at your local movie rental store (that's where I found it). It was fascinating! Yes, I did stretch things from there a little - this is future and training methods may have improved, and Riddick is an exceptional specimen to begin with, but I don't think I stretched it unbelievably based on what I saw on that DVD. Watch it yourself and see if you aren't amazed.

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**My promise to faithful readers:**As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.

The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("_only_" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between stories (only 4 of which you can see, unfortunately), 3 kids, (2 of them young; 1 a teen), a husband and the life that contains them all plus a other responsibilities on the side, so writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.

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	16. Chapter 16: Decisions

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 16**

**Decisions**

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The climb out was not easy. Coulter slipped and fell more than once, but Riddick never heard a word of complaint about her clothes. She was over that. Riddick had an easier time of it, and he was glad he wasn't carrying the duffle. At the top, they took a chance and followed the rim around. The map put a small river on the other side of the caldera, and if they could hook up with it... if it was still running... they wouldn't have to worry about water for the rest of the hike. It'd hopefully make finding their way down easier too because a dark line on the map had separated the coastal shelf the city was built on from the rest of the mainland, and the color patterns had indicated a sudden change in vegetation. Riddick was suspecting cliffs.

It wasn't the first time he felt a flash of irritation at his limited intel, but what could he do. He'd been lucky to get what he had. For that matter, he'd been lucky to walk away. That ship had come down hard. While it left him making assumptions about what was in front of him, and while he might not be entirely happy about it, he could deal with it. Living came with options the dead didn't have. The designated travel lanes on the map also seemed to indicate where the river met the wall was an entrance to the wilderness area which hopefully offered an easy way down, but that was no guarantee in an age when a majority of the vehicles flew.

The rim of the caldera was a broad arc of rough terrain. Trees clung stubbornly the caldera's sides, but in the gaps between their boughs and branches, the view from the top offered a glimpse of where they'd been and where they were going. On one side, a sheer drop into the deep dark waters of the caldera; on the other, a steep vegetation scattered incline. Back the way they'd come, toward the crash site, an occasional cliff could be seen peering from behind the trees as the lush green growth undulated and draped over haphazard ridges and valleys. As it climbed the dark colors of the forest began to smudge and pale as they became lost behind the morning mists, and behind that, in the distance - more as a presence than anything that could truly be seen - Riddick felt the looming weight of true mountains. It was rough land and it appeared they done pretty well finding a way down. Try as he might, he could see no sign of their crash, but he didn't fool himself in that regard. It would be plain enough from satellite once they started scanning the right area with the right program. They were working on borrowed time and he growled silently as the sensation of being hunted again crept in closer.

As they came around the rim, picking their way in, through and occasionally having to scramble over great dark boulders, the terrain glimpsed through the trunks below them transitioned until he was looking at down-sloping land that was mainly forest patched with scattered meadows and the occasional swathe of grassland. Beyond that... beyond a point where the trees stopped abruptly and even further in the distance... the dark blocky shapes of things man-made. Two, maybe three days tops. That was all the time he had left to fuse down the girl's trust... to ensure he wasn't putting his neck on the line by walking into town with her... to make sure his paycheck didn't think she needed to go anywhere without him.

When they reached the other side of the rim, Riddick caught a glimmer of rippling light through the trees below. _We got water_, he sighed with relief, and then shifted his gaze over to the precariously steep avalanche of irregular, black stone they would have to traverse to get down. _And we got rocks._ There were rocks the size of small houses down to ones as big as his head and everything in-between tumbled down the side of the old volcano in a sharply angled jumble of debris and mini-cliffs. An occasional bit of bush managed to find foothold here and there in-between, but nothing bigger. This was the wind side of the cone and piled rocks didn't allow for much in the way of dirt or shelter. It didn't stop some stuff from trying to grow, but what there was, was stunted and sparse and wasn't going to offer any cover to speak of. In peak condition, Riddick figured the time it would take him to traverse this route could be counted in minutes, not hours. But he wasn't in peak condition. Between Altair and the cats, he was far from his peak. And there was Coulter... She said she climbed, and she seemed to be able to keep her feet under her well enough, but the rocks she'd been climbing previous to this were fake. He glanced skyward. It wasn't like they'd been hiding, but he hadn't been trying to be obvious either and between the two of them, it was bound to take longer than he'd like.

Mentally he reviewed the distance involved in going back to the 'easy' access they'd come in on and coming around the base. It figured, current health withstanding, to take at least half the day, maybe more. Volcanoes had habits of doing drastic things to the landscape and neither debris fields nor lava flows were guaranteed to be flat. With the trees that had grown up over it, he couldn't see what they'd be walking through. That meant the downhill side of the volcano could be just as rough, if - on the average - leveler. But there might be places they would find impassable considering current limitations, and then they'd be talking detours too. Half a day would be the bare minimum.

This route was a known quantity - more work, more strain on injuries, but doable and it was shorter - both in distance, and, possibly, time. He was all about saving time. He studied the rocks roughing out a route. They didn't have ropes, but for this chunky stuff they could get by without if they took their time and watched themselves. He knew by now she was nimble enough to keep upright, but she wouldn't be flying down. Riddick wanted to blame at the girl for causing more delay, but the truth was he wouldn't be flying down either. He'd be taking his time too if he didn't want to tear something. _Damn_, he thought with wry humor, _it's near embarrassing. Gotta get to a commercial dar-gen soon. Not sure my ego can handle all this panty waisting. _

He shook his head ruefully, and then started down the face without bothering to ask Coulter's opinion. But, he hadn't gotten very far when he realized he wasn't hearing the scramble of boots behind him. When he looked up, he saw why.

Coulter stood at the top, the duffle hanging from her hand by one handle as she pressed her back against a mammoth boulder at the edge of the descent. _Ah, crap. Forgot about her fear of heights._ But he'd made his decision, and he really didn't want to climb back up.

"Coulter," he barked, "We're burning daylight."

"But... but... Riddick... It's so far down..."

He bit back a growl of exasperation. Yeah, this was the girl who free climbed fake rock walls to stay in shape, but the real thing really _was_ a whole 'nother animal in her book. He wanted to roll his eyes. "Its steep, but it ain't sheer. You can handle it."

"It's too high..." she choked.

"Stair's stop you back home?" he asked sharply.

Her brows knit. "No, but..."

"You take 'em all at once?"

"No, but..."

"That's all these are... big stairs... and you take 'em the same way you take the stairs back home. One at a time."

"But..."

Riddick resisted counting. He was trying to be nice now. "One at time. Coulter, don't make me climb back up there..." There was an element of threat to the statement, but he flexed his arm and then reached over to rub his shoulder giving it a potentially alternate meaning. He didn't really care which got her moving. "You make it down this far, we'll do the rest together."

She hesitated, staring down at the steep rocks.

"You can do this, Denise," he said quietly.

At her name, her eyes shot to his face and she stared at him hard. He met her eyes straight on, and after a few heartbeats, he held out his hand and flipped his fingers up a couple times - an open handed gesture of "Come." It encouraged simply, without threat.

"I... I can do this," she whispered hesitantly without dropping her gaze, and stepped away from the boulder.

At the edge, she sat down and focused on what she was doing. She pushed the duffle over, breaking it's fall to the next level with a little resistance, but she let go before it could pull her over. It landed with a soft _thud,_ and she looked up quickly, fearful. Riddick met her gaze with patient stoicism, wholly concealing his irritation and growing impatience. "I can do this," she whispered again, and then she closed her eyes and slid off the edge. She held on until the weight hit the end of her arm, breaking her momentum a bit, and then dropped.

It was a meter down, and she landed square on the rough surface. One arm waved wildly, and then she was stable. She looked up at Riddick in surprise as if she had been certain that single meter was going to turn into hundreds. He met her gaze she offered a fleeting worried smile. _One down_, Riddick thought sourly, _one hundred eighty six to go._ The next stage offered an alternative route. The rock she was on ran level to a sharp drop, and she was able to scoot on her belly to the edge. With eyes tightly closed, she hung an arm over to drop the duffle down the two meters remaining. The bag fell, landing in a crack between her little cliff and the steeply slanted stone below it. Afterwards she scooted back fast until her back was against the solid rock behind her where she sat and panted, eyes still tightly shut. Riddick's angle let him see her well, and he had no doubt that if that damn perfume of hers wasn't altering everything, he'd be able to smell her on the edge of panic.

She spent half a minute sitting there, breathing hard, frozen, until Riddick said quietly, "Denise."

Her eyes snapped open, and she stared at him for a long beat. Then she whispered, "Riddick," as if his name... as if the sight of him... were a talisman and forced herself to move.

She stood shakily and slid sideways, pressed against the rock behind her until she reached the edge of the one she was standing on. From there, she had to step away from her reassuring support and off the level stone she was standing on to a broken path that paralleled it but slanted sharply. She crouched, following the outside edge of the level rock before her, both hands clinging to the flat surface as she eased her way down and around, stepping from chunk to piece to buried boulder to new chunk like a ragged curving staircase on which any slip could break an ankle. Each step dropped her lower, so she had to straighten up to keep the horizontal edge in her hands. The edge became a railing, and then rose over her head as her path continued to descend. By the time she reached the duffle, her handholds were reduced to knobs and depressions in the rock face, and she was hugging the rough surface. She had to balance on a narrow blade of stone as she wrestled to get the duffle from the crack where it was wedged. She heaved it out and turned around, but then immediately flattened herself against the rock behind her again.

She faced her final unaccompanied challenge... a steep incline of relatively flat stone with no surfaces to lean on, no edges to grab. Riddick had _walked_ down that part, but her hand gripped the duffle handles white knuckle tight as she surveyed the slope and couldn't help seeing past it to the rest.

"Riddick?" Her voice rose. "I don't-"

"You can do this," he cut her short. When she didn't respond, he waved his hand interrupting her downward gaze. Her eyes fixed on him. "You can do this," he repeated firmly.

She stared at him a moment longer and then nodded faintly. Slowly she lowered herself until she was huddled on the narrow edge of rock. From there she extended one leg and began to inch her way down. Before long she was stretched out, twisted on the steep surface lying half on her side, her right hand clutching at the stone above her head, her left wrapped around the handles of the duffle, which dragged against her trying to pull her down the slope while her purse pressed against her back. She very quickly discovered, however, she was in _no_ danger of falling here. As the rough lava rock clung to the weave of her stockings and sweater like Velcro, her angled decent toward him became a tedious process of detaching alternate parts of her clothes from the stone to move them centimeters at a time. Riddick wanted to order at her to just get up and walk like a normal human, but he knew it wouldn't do any good, so he simply held his tongue.

At last, she peeled her torso from the rock and sank to her knees beside him on the ledge where he was waiting. She wrapped her arms around one of his legs and all but sobbed. "I can't do this, Riddick, I can't!"

Riddick resisted the urge to pick her up and shake her. While he hadn't been feeling it in her gaze this time around, there was no question she was afraid. It transmitted through her voice, the tension of the slight body against his leg, the desperate grip wrapped around it. Real rocks, real height. She was facing one of her worst demons.

"Yeah, you can," he responded tightly. "You made it this far. You can do the rest."

"It's too high."

"Big stairs, Coulter. They're just big stairs. We'll take 'em one at a time."

"I can't," she cried.

His irritation flared and Riddick had a fleeting impulse to just shake her off and watch her bounce the rest of the way down, but neither boss would pay him after that.

"So what?" He tried another tact. "I should to just leave you up here? You seriously gonna make _me_ climb down carrying that duffle?" It was a threat - I can take my bag and leave - but it was also a tag on this strange concern, whatever its motive, that she'd been offering him.

At this she flinched as if he'd pinched her, and she looked up at him sharply, her eyes fixed on the bandages around his chest. After a moment she dropped her gaze down the side and shuddered... hard... before she dropped her head and clung to him all the tighter

"It's just big stairs," he heard her pleading with herself desperately. "Just big stairs..." And he could hear the fear countering her reason. She was on the edge.

"We'll take 'em one at a time," he interjected into her flow, his voice pushing calm, contrary to what he felt. "You got me here. We'll take them together."

"Riddick, I'm scared."

At least she was still listening. "You scared when that second cat jumped out?"

"Yes." Her answer was buried in a whimper.

"You let it stop you from saving me?" That bit the other way.

There was a long hesitation, and then she whispered, "...no."

"Then don't let it stop you now. And you ain't facing this cat alone."

"I'd rather fight another Fever Cat," she said softly, but her voice was stronger.

"See what I can arrange... once we hit bottom," Riddick answered dryly.

He received a choked chuckle in reply, and then she clutched his leg, hard, one last time before forcing herself to move. She pried herself loose and pushed back against the rock behind her, keeping as far from the edge of the ledge as she could. "I've... I've got this..." she pulled the duffle close again, and then her eyes sought his. He couldn't quite feel it, but he could see it. Fear was pushing hard, but for the moment, it was under control.

_Let's keep it that way,_ he commanded silently. _Hysterics won't get us anywhere._

"Just big stairs," she repeated. A plea.

"Just big stairs," he confirmed. "We take 'em one at a time... together."

She nodded faintly, and they began their descent again.

It was nearly as bad as the first night they slept in the woods. She had the skills, but she needed his constant reassurance. She clung to his touch and to his voice as if her sanity depended on it and, who knew, maybe it did. He didn't do any lifting or lowering, but he did guide... directions to a handhold, pushing a foot toward a niche, a steadying presence where nervous balance might result in something more than a scrape. She stalled once. They hit a high spot that left her cringing against the rock face, but Riddick managed to talk her out of that one too before his irritation could begin to voice itself.

_Who knew I was such a damn good motivator,_ he thought sourly.

He was constantly surprised when his patience held, even when it seemed on its last thread. He wondered if it might possibly be pity for the poor girl, but he wasn't sure he was capable of that emotion. It was just plain that she was doing the best she could and more drama wasn't going to improve her performance. She was afraid, but she was dealing with it... barely. After her stall, she kept her eyes fixed on the rocks beneath her feet or on him with a dogged insistence that was unnerving, but he knew it was a desperate ploy to focus on anywhere but down. It had to be tolerated. The alternative would get them nowhere.

The duffle also suffered its fair share of wear as it was dropped and rolled from one level to the next with regularity. With the bio-guide and the dar-gen gone, there was really nothing of real concern left beyond the water bottles, and they could take it. The med-kit... they'd see.

It was nearing noon, and the sun was beating down hot and heavy on both of them when they finally hit the broad flat stone Riddick had mentally marked as 'bottom'. They were both worn and aching, if for different reasons, and while he knew he was feeling the heat, neither of them had actually begun to burn yet. At the bottom, the debris field continued, although the angle shifted hard to something vaguely resembling horizontal. Riddick looked past the girl struggling down the last 'step' of the steep jumbled stones they'd just come down and found what should have been a hop, skip and a jump felt more like an accomplishment. _Definitely gettin' soft._ Then his eyes fell back on the girl. _But the right doc'll fix that soon enough. Little soft right now don't hurt where's she's concerned. _

Her feet hit the solid stone and she picked up the duffle. He watched as her eyes rigidly scanned the rock finding his boots and then tracking up to his face with narrow focus, waiting for his next instruction. "Look around," he rumbled.

"Oh... I can't! I don't dare," she gasped.

"Trust me." The words twisted strangely in his gut.

She caught her breath and stared at him, weighing her fear against his words, and then effortfully wrenched her eyes from his. He watched them widen as she took in the rock field behind him and then she spun around to face the mountain. Coulter held stock still, save for her head, which slowly tilted as she took in the rising stones she had just descended, and then he heard her whisper, "We did it."

The duffle slipped from her hand dismissed out of hand to stone at her feet. "We did it," she said a little louder. "We made it down." She spun to face him. "We did it," she announced with disbelief, and then he saw the realization hit her eyes. All the fear and tenseness of the descent transformed

"We did it!" she screamed and rushed him. She had her arms wrapped around him in a stout bear hug before he recognized her intent, and sucked air as she mashed herself against his chest. "Oh..." she pulled back suddenly. "Sorry," she exclaimed excitedly, "sorry," and then hugged him again more carefully before she let go and danced away. "We did it! We did it!" she sang over and over.

Riddick rolled his eyes, but below the show of exasperation there was a part of him that wondered - almost wistfully - what her victory felt like. As many times as it seemed he could almost feel the fear that radiated through those autumn thunder eyes, what sensation would such joy cause? Had he ever felt such elation? Maybe. When he was younger... maybe in that zoo so long ago. Maybe the first time he got to fly a ship. Maybe when he set the record for the first perfect score in space combat at Sigma.

He watched her dance in a little circle, arms over her head, as she laughed and crowed, "We did it!" again.

Maybe never.

He shook his head. _Females. Can't live with them and be boring as hell to live without 'em._ "Coulter," he barked, "We're still burning daylight!"

She jumped, and then laughed as she ran to collect the duffle. Even his scowl wasn't going to faze her right now, so he simply turned and made his way off the rock toward the river. They had to pick their way through more stone debris, but it was becoming more sparse and a lot more avoidable as they skirted the edge of the mountain. Denise was still babbling her disbelief to herself behind him, but Riddick ignored her, listening instead to a growing dull _shhhhhh_ off to the side running counter to the rush of water from the more distant river. There was an element to the river's sound that was telling him something he didn't want to hear, but he refused to take on that stress until it was confirmed. There was always the chance he was wrong... a slim one. Another ten meters brought the kiss of a fine mist on the breeze and the scent of a familiar lake - a scent he'd lost as they dropped below the rim - with the added hint of hot spring.

A short distance more offered a view into a 'fold' in the side of the volcano. This sheltered 'alcove' was the backdrop for an idyllic little meadow divided by a good sized stream, its rippling waters meandering their way through on its way to the river. The streambed was a slash of black stone and sand flanked by green... intense green... on either side. The abundance of water encouraged a proliferation of grass and it was streaked through with ripples of white and blue wildflowers. Scattered stands of trees marked the places where deeper root systems had pushed through and offered spots of shade from the climbing sun. As he stepped into view, a sudden movement drew his eye. It was a deer of some sort, quite normal looking, although now he was less inclined to trust appearance. He stopped and watched a doe and her barely spotted fawn leap from the vegetation of one of the stands and bound away, and moments later felt the duffle run into his back. He rotated sharply to glare at his careless companion.

"Sorry," she giggled.

He sighed. She was high on her own accomplishment and wasn't going to be good for much until those chemicals had a chance to metabolize. Fear or anger would counter them quicker, but the tactics required to generate sufficient levels of _those_ chemicals would totally undermine what he was trying to do with her emotionally. _Time for a tactical delay. Let's hope we can keep it short. _He detoured into the meadow. "Lunch," he announced sourly.

"Oh, boy!" Coulter squealed, "A picnic!"

Riddick rolled his eyes for what he was sure _wouldn't_ be the last time. _Patience_, he reminded himself... again. _Being... 'nice'. _"Damn, forgot the basket," he returned tonelessly, eating the sarcasm he felt.

Coulter laughed. It wasn't an annoying laugh. It might even be tolerable to pleasant if the situation weren't so maddening. It was just he wanted to be walking - it had taken them way too long to get down.

Denise rushed past him into the meadow, ruining any chance to do a survey of the scents in the place, but he had to guess if the deer felt safe enough to bed down here, it was safe enough for them... for a few minutes anyways. He watched Coulter, her bright, elated eyes scanning everything, and then she stopped suddenly staring up the stream, eyes wide with surprise. Before he could even begin to think _danger_, she exclaimed, "Riddick! It's beautiful!"

Riddick joined her. It was the source of the stream, and as he came around, the source of the great _shhhh_ing sound he had been hearing for the last thirty meters became obvious as well. In the back of the 'fold', a 'crack' was cut into the side of the mountain creating an sizable niche, and the place - three quarters illuminated by the nearly overhead sun - was filled with shining black stone contrasted by sparkling rainbow mist, crystalline water, and even more brilliant greens.

There was no question where the water came from. On the other side of that black wall were millions of cubic meters of water and a narrow cleft high above let a fair portion spill through where it hit stones and was redirected into a multitude of smaller flows cascading down the dark face. It looked like a scene from one of the novelty holocoins sold in convenience stores - "Relieve Stress!" they advertised. "Take a 5 minute vacation with our Eco-Vision Holocoin. Put Paradise in your Pocket." Runnels, rivulets, little streams fell and splashed, split and dodged as they dropped from one level to the next, one rock to the next, in a ever widening flow of exuberant white water ribbons shaded blue by the ebony rock behind them.

They leapt and spread, their force blunted by their numerous diversions until the calm sheltered pool at the bottom swallowed their remaining energy. The air borne moisture kept the visible rocks polished black with the wetness, but much of the stone couldn't even be seen... the constant damp encouraged plant growth. It was like stepping back into the rainforest, only this one approached tropical because the water in the pool was warm. He could feel it. Riddick suspected winter's view of this niche would be no less spectacular as rising steam coated the interior of the alcove in robes of crystal ice.

But right now, every surface that could hold a root was bushy with some sort of green life. They abounded out of every crack and crevice they could cling to while algae - draped over rocks caressed by gentler streams - rippled like gold and emerald velvet in the current. Even the two wengy tree trunks fallen from high above and wedged aslant between the rocks and the pool didn't draw from the pleasant scene. The contrast of their intruding death only added new color and the opportunity for life to show its versatility as emerald moss had begun to creep down their rough surface.

Out of the path of the rushing water, curvy orange flowers on arcing stems bobbed among the little waterfalls. Their concave petals collected the airborne water, causing the blooms to dip lower and lower as the weight accumulated. They would dip until their angle dumped the water from their indentations, and then they would spring up in a graceful nodding motion that continued until enough water gathered in their petals to steady them and start the process again. There was never a moment that a dozen flowers weren't moving, and as soon as they stabilized, others would dump their load and take up the dance. The constant bobbing motion of so many bright heads left the impression that they were waltzing to a silent symphony that only they could hear.

It truly was idyllic, but Riddick saw its potential as well. This was a weak point in the caldera. At some point, this cracked black wall would no longer prove sufficient to contain the mass of quiet water behind it. At some point, this root riddled dam would break and millions of cubic meters of water were going to make a rush down the hill and over the plateau. He didn't know just how much, or how far it would travel, but it was going to wreak a lot of destruction along the way. And there was active heat here. If what broke the dam were tremors from a stirring volcano, then the water might be the least of anyone's problems. It wasn't a concern at the moment. He was certain the mountain wasn't going to be shaking anytime soon, but in his current mood, it just added to his restlessness. He really just wanted to be moving... but he couldn't. Not right at this moment. Not while Coulter's brain was checked out on endorphins.

He tried to push his mood from impatience before he did something he would regret later. "You wanted me to find you a shower," he said dryly, and immediately wished he hadn't. He caught hold of his imagination before it could carry that thought to its natural conclusion. He was still trying to keep his options open, and she hadn't shown any inclinations. He preferred his partners willing, for the most part, anyways. He forced his focus to the money instead... to the route he'd roughed out. Wouldn't take more than 8,000 credits - give or take a few hundred - to get him there. No frills, no start up, but it would get him there. 25,000... he could do a lot more with that.

"Oh, you!" She laughed taking a playful swat at his arm - one that didn't _quite_ manage to make contact. "You're incorrigible!"

"No," he returned, "I'm hungry," - a lie - "and we've still got ground to cover before dark."

"But it's beautiful! Can't you even take a moment to appreciate it?"

He stood there looking at the waterfalls for a heartbeat and then turned to stare at her stoically, his gaze drawn to her eyes again. Like water of another sort... deep and bright like the lake they had just left behind. Hadn't her eyes been greyer... stormier? Another heartbeat.

"There. Appreciated," he said less annoyed for some reason. "Can we eat now?"

She stared back, and then laughed and rolled her own eyes. "Men. No comprehension of beauty."

Riddick disagreed. They just found their beauty in other places, but he wasn't going to argue. He merely continued to stare at her.

"Fine. Let's eat," she laughed again and skipped off across the grass like a child, twirling in the wildflowers and sending up a scattering of green and yellow butterflies as she made her way to the stand of trees the deer had been using.

Riddick quickly figured out why the deer had chosen it. It had a fine view of the rest of the meadow, and out of the path of the waterfalls' funnel, the sound was reduced to background noise. While that wall of sound canceled out anything beyond the funnel, the rest of the cliff worked as an amphitheatre bringing the sounds of the meadow and the rest of the surrounding woods in while keeping their back relatively protected by steep black stone. Nothing coming down that slope with any speed would be quiet, and if it was coming slow enough to be quiet it would be in plain view the whole way.

By the time he joined her, Coulter had already selected a spot - a large flat rock - and had the duffle open. Both Steribottles were set out, one across from the other, and she was placing a wrapped ration bar beside each one. Damned if she wasn't arranging them. _Yeah, a picnic._

"We can't stay long."

"Sit down, and take a load off," she countered, grinning.

"I want to make the plateau near the wilderness boundary before nightfall," he said, complying reluctantly.

"You _said_ you wanted lunch."

"And I don't want it to take long. We've got ground to cover." _Why am I putting up with this shit? _Riddick growled to himself. _Oh, yeah. I'm bein' 'nice.' Wonder if I can count 'nicely.'_

"Oh, will you loosen up?" she teased cheerfully.

Riddick drew a sharp breath, and then held it a moment, reforming his words. "There's a side of this I think you missed. I'm a _convict_. Jenner was taking me to _prison_," he enunciated. "Sooner or later the authorities are going to investigate the wreck. When they do, they're gonna find it short one Richard B Riddick. Then they're gonna start _lookin'_ for me. Gettin' off-world is going to get a whole lot harder after that."

"And I've been slowing you down," she said with sudden understanding, the realization sobering her slightly. "I guess I didn't think about that. I'm sorry." Her brows knit momentarily as she considered, and then she looked at him - eyes still sparkling, "I'll tell you what. You loosen up now, and when were done _I'll_ push it. We'll make up the time, I promise. But I mean, really? How often do you get to have a picnic in a place like this?" She paused thoughtfully. "For that matter how often do _you_ get to have a picnic?"

Riddick wanted to roll his eyes, but he closed them instead. What could he do? This had been his idea, and she was right about one thing. Being tense right now served no purpose so he resigned himself and consciously forced the tightness from his muscles, forced his mind to set the timetable aside for a few minutes. It did feel good to get out of the sun and cool down before they hit the trail again. "Fine," he finally agreed. "Fifteen minutes. Then we start walking, and you push it the rest of the day." _Seriously doubt you can keep that promise, but I'm sure as hell gonna to make you try._

"Deal!" she pounced.

Riddick released a final sigh, expelling the last bit of tension through his nose. When he opened his eyes, he saw Coulter selecting a wildflower from the grass beside the rock. She was grinning, eyeing him mischievously as she turned back. He met her gaze and raised an eyebrow in silent challenge, and she giggled, unfazed, but evidently thought better of her plan and reached up, sticking the flower behind her ear instead. The dark azure blossom pulled at the new blue in her eyes and Riddick deliberately dropped his gaze to his ration bar.

Inside the package, the bar was mangled. Riddick opened one end and fished out a piece to chew on before he pulled the duffle over and began going through it. He had already observed the water bottles sporting a few new dents. The pot had faired little better, but it was the med kit that was the main concern. A new crack ran diagonally across the back of the case, but inside the contents seemed to have weathered the descent relatively well. The hypo and its remaining capsules, nestled in their foam housing, weren't even rattled. The rest of the contents - cushioned by what was left of the gauze, pads, and wraps - were no worst for the abuse, save for a massive case of disorganization. Riddick slapped a strip of Plastipair over the new crack and tossed the box upside down on the duffle to cure as they ate. The box was looking like crap, but with all the Plastipair on it, it was quickly becoming the strongest container in the collection.

While he worked, Coulter's attention was drawn to a pair of bright orange and black birds that flitted down to the branches of a nearby tree. She watched them with rapt attention, and Riddick pondered her forced adjustment to the wilderness. She still didn't like things that went bump in the night, but she had settled in nicely, considering. There was just something that nagged him... like a little itch he couldn't reach. Not a big itch, but the fact it wouldn't go away told him there were thoughts he needed to process. There was no doubt Jenner thought she was worth keeping - she hadn't secured herself in a lock-down tube. And her story was plausible... her job, her fancy purse, her boots, her gun, even her lucky shot and her odd skills... the whole thing was entirely plausible.

But was it true?

"This must be a pretty bland picnic after Tony treating you to things like real butter and - what was it? - Blood Crabs on his birthday?" He decided to do a little fishing of his own. The night in the tree, she'd done quite a bit of talking about food. She'd said Tony imported steaks every year for his birthday. Were they idle details or outright deception? She'd been rambling so she might not remember what all she'd said. If he caught her lying...

But she didn't bat an eye as she turned from the birds. "What? Oh, no. These are fine... well, as long as they're solid." She laughed. "But it wasn't crab Tony brought in on his birthday. It was bison steaks, preferably from Wyoming on Earth Prime. He brought the crab in for _Tina's_ birth..."

She suddenly faltered again, the same way she had when she started talking about the pig her boss had brought in for a barbecue. All the excitement from her success drained from her eyes in a moment as they darkened and transformed. Same name that time too. He could read that shift well enough by now. More old pain. The kind that never really healed. As effective a downer as anything he could have devised without the negatives to the trust factor. _Nice_, he thought to himself, and it had nothing to do with the way he had to behave.

"Who's this Tina?" he asked, wanting to lock in the mood, and - in spite of himself - he was curious.

"She... she was my best friend in school. Tony's daughter," Coulter answered solemnly after a long moment. "She was killed by one of Tony's rivals out to make a statement. Tina wasn't supposed to be there, but since she was, they had no problem making her the exclamation point." She paused, and then looked down, seeming to discover the wrapper of her ration bar. She studied it closely for a moment before she finally sighed and continued. "She was more like a sister, honestly. I took it pretty hard and called my mom. Went off planet to spend some time with her. It's the only time she's ever really been there for me. When I got back home, things were different. Tony'd changed. We both had. The jobs I went on... the people I started dealing with... they got more dangerous."

"So why didn't you quit?"

She looked up at him startled, as if she were surprised by the idea, but then shook her head. "I couldn't do that to him. He was like a second father to me... well, back then he was." She looked down. "The relationship is different now, and I do what I do. Usually I do it pretty well." She glanced sourly back the way they'd come, as if she could see the ship through the stone and the trees, and then looked back to her ration bar. "Really screwed up this time though."

"May still work out." _For one of us, at least._ "You got me here." _Depending._

"Yeah... " she flashed him an odd glance and then looked down again. "I've got you."

The look said something, but he wasn't sure what_. Still deciding if she can trust me? _ But the rest of what she said was interesting too. Seemed she had some emotional worth to Tony Gallo... or used to. But if she still did, would he be putting her in danger running mob messages the way he was? Especially after losing a daughter? It didn't help make his decision. On another level, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. _A 'sister' and two dads. Must be nice. But no mom to speak of. _That much he could relate to. Moms gave a special kind of love - he'd experienced that for a few months - kids needed moms. Needed dads too. Needed both. That's why Carawa. And Carawa was why he was here, now. You think he would have learned his lesson, but he didn't take parents from kids if he knew about them. And if people with kids he didn't know about got between him and freedom? He didn't like what he might have done, but people with kids had no business taking jobs where they'd be mixing with people like him.

So did _she_ have kids? She hadn't said. He hadn't asked, but if she did, it might make his decision a lot simpler. 25,000 credits was a nice take, but he could make do with less. "So you got anybody waiting for you back home?"

"Anybody?" She looked up. "You mean like other than my dad and Tony? Boyfriend? Husband? Kids?"

Riddick grunted agreement.

She shook her head. "It'd be nice, but no."

"That's surprising," Riddick commented. "Nice little piece like you."

Coulter eyed him wryly. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

Riddick shrugged his good shoulder noncommittally.

She chuckled. "I won't say a few haven't shown interest, but between all the running around I do and the pace I keep at home..." She shook her head again. "They don't last long. I guess I just haven't met the right guy yet. What about you? You got a girl somewhere?"

Riddick shook his head.

She sighed. "Guess neither of our lives are very conducive to romance."

_No kids. Still stuck deciding._ He had time yet, but the facts fidgeted restlessly beneath his need to make a choice. 25,000 was a lot and it was hard to weigh 'maybe' against 'probable'... to weigh promises against hard cash. But going for the cash did things to Coulter. Unpleasant things. His head shake seemed agreement, but the gesture sourced from a different motive. _Damn. Why'd you have to go and become somebody. This would be a hell of a lot easier if you'd 've just stayed a baffle brained frail_. But 25,000 credits... He had time yet, but if it came to that, it certainly wouldn't be the first time circumstances dictated he go against his conscience... if he could be said to have one.

They finished their meal and refilled the water bottles before following the stream down to the river. He had hoped the river would prove an easy water source - and maybe downstream it would - but here the two-D map had blown it again. Riddick was not amused, but it was exactly what his ears had told him he'd find. The little stream cascaded over the edge of a small gorge to join a larger rushing current some six meters below. The river ran through a deep winding channel cut through the sentiment laid down by the pyroclastic flow of the volcano's ancient eruption and into the stone beneath it. In the rough walls Riddick could see hundreds of layers... the appearance of hundreds of thousands of years of geologic time deposited in days by a single catastrophic event. Those sedimentary layers had long since hardened to stone, fixing them in the shapes carved by those long ago events... a canyon sometimes sheer, sometimes partially collapsed, but at no time easily climbable... at the moment. The irritation Riddick had set aside in the meadow returned as he set the pace.

It started fast, and the girl tried... she tried hard... but as the day went on their stops became more frequent and their breaks lasted a little longer. She didn't keep her promise, but she made a serious effort, and she didn't let go of the duffle. She carried it up, out of the caldera, down the other side and she carried it for the rest of the day. At the end of each break, she would stare at the bag, and then - with a furtive glance in his direction - resolutely shoulder it once again. Whatever her motives, he wasn't complaining. Riddick's only real dissatisfaction was their speed. He didn't think much of the pace, but it was moving them forward, and they both had their reasons for not pushing as hard as he really wanted. Considering he should be dead, the fact they were moving forward at all had to count for something.

They stayed under the cover of trees where it was cooler. She appreciated that. Riddick appreciated that it also served to make them less obvious to any overhead eyes that might chance their way. The path Riddick chose followed the river, directly where the forest had reclaimed the land to the river's edge, sometimes off to the side when rough terrain or thinning trees forced them away from the water making it their companion only through the sound of its rushing current. On occasion, when the breeze was strong enough to pull Coulter's sub-dermal garden off point, Riddick could even smell it, but her burdened exertion had pushed her stench out beyond its normal boundaries. He wanted to tell her to back off, but knew the utter futility of even trying. She was adapting, but she wasn't ready to take up rear guard a half klick back. Whether he liked it or not, he was stuck within the perimeter her olfactory funk and he wasn't likely to get out while she was working so hard. As long as nothing was hunting them - and Riddick had no indication by hackle or otherwise that there was - he would deal with it. At least smelling like an exotic flowerbed on steroids it didn't hinder her feet, and that was the only thing Riddick really cared about at the moment.

Toward late afternoon Coulter had emptied her water bottle and Riddick had refilled it with the contents of a Steribottle. It was the '_nice_' thing to do. She _was_ carrying the load. Riddick had already assembled a jerry -rigged harness in his head that used her net and the fishing line to fill the bottles from a height, but he wasn't looking forward to using it. He toyed with the idea of making Coulter do it. Did he dare make her try and risk the current pulling the whole device, water bottle and all, out of her hands? And then there was that fear of heights.

As he pushed on into the edge of dusk trying to fit a few more fractions of kilometer into their day, they ran into a sudden drop in the land beneath their feet. It wasn't the edge of the plateau Riddick had wanted to reach, but it was just as sheer. From their position Riddick could see where the river rushed from its narrow canyon and spewed out the wall, transformed into a violent cataract that fell in a spray of white water to a wide pool etched into the stone below. Not all the sides of the pool were sheer, and one section cut from sight behind a peninsula of rock, looking to have been washed out from another direction but Riddick couldn't see the rest for the trees. From the pool the river veered sideways, draining into another canyon nearly as deep and inaccessible as the first, but near the out flow was a drop that overlooked calm water - relatively speaking. _Promising. Maybe I can finagle Coulter into collecting after all_. This close to reaching civilization, without a serious current to fight her, he might be willing to take the risk, but there was still that fear of heights to deal with. If he was lucky, her recent 'victory' might play into that.

There was no way down the cliff where they were standing, but the angle of the drop shifted as it traveled away from the river. Riddick head perpendicular from the water following a trail worn along the edge and as he did, he noticed other animal trails converging with it, both pawed and hooved on the same route. He began to wonder, and then to hope. With no evidence of another bottleneck coming up, a likely reason for both predators and prey to be on the same path was water. Their human boot treads overlaid the print collection as he followed the tracks weaving through trees, brush and rocks. The animals took shortcuts when they could find them, zig-zagging down the incline as soon as the angle allowed. It wasn't always easy, but scouted as it was, by an assortment of four footed beasts, it was never more than the two footed ones could handle for which Riddick was grateful as the light began to dim. He really didn't need Coulter tripping up and slowing them down this late in the day.

The trail brought them to the bottom of the ridge, and then cut back toward the river. A couple more tracks merged with the little highway and Riddick followed it right up to a ravine enclosing a steady roar. There the trail forked. One branch led off and away to where Riddick could see a brightness through the trees that hinted strongly of open sky; his guess was a clearing. The other branch entered the ravine, and the breeze coming out of it pushed back Coulter's garden enough to bring him the damp scent of wet stone and the white water. Knowing there was accessible water straight ahead, and that they probably had a liter of purified water left between them, let him rearrange priorities. They needed a camp while they could still see.

"Let's find someplace we can kick back for the night," he announced.

She searched their surroundings warily, as she had been for some time, and then nodded distractedly. "I was beginning to think you were going to try hiking through the dark."

"Don't think you can do that?" Riddick teased with mild mocking.

She didn't even honor his smart assery with _a_ _look. _"Don't think I _want_ to do that," she came back primly.

He chuckled, and then took the branch leading away from the ravine.

"Are we looking for something special tonight?"

Riddick shook his head. "No hint of weather. No sign of anything big on the trail. We can make do with most anything."

The trail split again as it neared the clearing, branching off to either side. These little trails grew thin and near invisible as they continued to split apart, and then meander back together in nearly random patterns, but Riddick knew they were recon trails laid down by animals wanting to check out the clearing before they stepped into the open. The little paths served his purpose as well and he followed them around the clearing. He was looking for something level with minimal brush, far enough into the trees to not be blatantly obvious from above. Deadfall nearby would be a bonus.

They hadn't gone far when he spotted exactly what he was looking for, in a manner far beyond anything he was expecting. It was as primitive as anything they had made, but it was, in fact, the first sign of human presence that he'd seen since they'd left the ship behind. A circle of rocks rested between two large logs, and to one side a partial stack of cut, dried branches promising several hours of clean burning fire. As welcome as the site was, Riddick immediately felt old familiar sensations rise up. People meant civilization, and civilization meant law. He paused where he was and searched the clearing, the trees, the shadows with extra care.

He saw birds swooping through the air, striped rodents chasing each other over the forest floor, and on the far side of the clearing, a flick of an ear revealed a deer-kind mirroring Riddick's actions with equal wariness. Riddick's mouth twitched in a brief smile. He was sure the deer's presence was a great deal more reassuring to him, than his was to the deer, and after a long moment he turned back to Coulter who was watching him expectantly.

"Stay put," he commanded.

"What... here?" Her eyes widened. "Alone?"

Riddick eyed her. "Stay. Put," he enunciated, and then stalked cautiously further down the path. A glance back showed her obeying, but not before she sidled up to a tree, putting her back against it, fearfully scanning the graying world around her with heightened suspicion.

The deer bounded away, Riddick's movement more than it would tolerate even with the space of the clearing between them. Riddick approached the camp and was more pleased the closer he got. Removed from the girl's aura of perfume he could smell the forest clearly again. He smelled pine sap and scraped earth, crushed leaves and rutting bucks, fox urine, evening blossoms and so much more. In short, he smelled the forest and all that was in it, but nowhere in it did he smell anything else remotely human anywhere nearby. His caution level eased as he stepped into the camp. Windblown leaves and needles were drifted up against the logs bleeding over into the fire pit, and only when he crouched beside it did he pick up the residual scent of old smoke and charcoal. It had been a full season at least since the camp was last used. Riddick grinned. All the comforts of home, such as they had enjoyed of late, at a fraction of the effort.

"All clear," he called, and Coulter came quick.

"A camp!" she exclaimed as she joined him. "I can't believe it!" She dropped the duffle and stood on tip toe, as if an extra two inches would improve her vision, scanning the clearing and the woods. "Is someone nearby? Are there other people here?"

Riddick shook his head faintly at her ignorance of the obvious and wondered why the thought excited her... if she'd bothered to consider what might happen if there _were _other people here... but he answered patiently, his mood greatly improved. "This camp ain't been used for a long time. Year, maybe longer, but the wood's good and it'll be easy enough to clean out the fire pit. Most of it will even burn." He stood. "Need more wood. Need to find where the latrine'll be. That's 'bout it."

"I'll help," she replied provisionally with a condemning glance at the dark gloom creeping down from its dark leafy bowers to overtake the forest floor, "but I'm _not_ doing it alone."

It wasn't the work part that made her balk, it was the alone part. He knew that well enough by now. "Fair enough," Riddick agreed - wouldn't have done much good to suggest otherwise - and led the way out of camp.

More proof of the camp's age was all around them. No one had scrounged for firewood here for some time. With the heat generated by a Firebug at their disposal, the twigs, leaves and needles in the pit already would work for tinder. Riddick collected for the next level up - twigs and small branches - and watched as Coulter carefully collected the larger sort. Each piece went through a careful inspection process for fungus, bugs and other creepy crawlies, and when she squeaked and danced away from a perfectly good chunk of wood because of a spider web, Riddick could only shake his head.

But, it wasn't going to take them long to pull together sufficient wood even with her idiosyncrasies interfering. A rock flanked by a couple bushes a few paces further into the trees passed her muster for a latrine so long as he promised to turn his back as well. It was easy to agree. Finding water and a pre-made camp had put them both in a better mood. He watched her heft up a branch, inspecting it up and down in the dimming light before adding it to her collection. She was easy to work with if you accommodated her wilderness peculiarities, and he suspected if encountered somewhere more 'civilized' - in the 'synthetic jungle' - she might be a different person entirely. Might be interesting to see just how different. _Wonder if Gallo could use a guy like me anywhere?_

That idea brought Riddick up short. Where had that come from? The thought was idle, but the ramifications were huge. Fixed base of operations, a boss... strings, trust, depending on someone else to keep his tail covered. From the way Coulter talked, if Gallo had the inclination, he'd probably have the means, but it'd be a whole change of life. But less important than the what was the why.

Riddick searched his motives and found at the base of that idle thought, curiosity... what would she be like some place she belonged? He didn't think she'd be a predator, not like he was, but he was certain she wasn't this timid prey thing he'd been traveling with. What about him? Could he really settle in one place? A _populated_ place? It wasn't the way he'd been living lately. It would be a whole different lifestyle with a radically different mindset. He was used to adjusting, but this would be a major stretch. He really thought he could if the conditions were right... if the reason were good enough... But that didn't answer why he was thinking about it _now_...

Because running, looking over his shoulder all the time, was no sort of life.

That was true, but that wasn't the reason.

Because it might be satisfying to have a job, get paid again, not have to scrounge and make do or, more often, do without... maybe get a chance to try things like butter and bison steaks.

Not hardly. It might be satisfying - in more ways than one - but it wasn't a reason to risk everything.

Riddick had to dig through several layers, but at the bottom of it all he found it. Because he was pretty sure, in her own environment, this girl might be someone he could appreciate... Because he was curious if he ran with this girl in her world if anything would come of it. Because he was wondering, if he could fit in her world, might _they_ become something?

The realization sent a chill down his spine. He wasn't considering strings. He was considering an emotional attachment. That spelled chains. Forget wife, forget kids... those were pipe dreams. This was real, and he was talking in-system worlds here, where law and bounties came standard. Name it properly... liability, leverage, bait... He was talking about laying bare his throat just to explore a possibility... just to take a _chance_ that this girl _might_ come around to _like_ him.

And there weren't any guarantees. She was being nice to him now. She thought she had to be, but he knew what was behind every fearful look she passed his way. What made him think she could ever care about _him_? Did he honestly believe she could learn to like... maybe something _more?_... a mass murdering serial killer? Did he honestly believe that once she was home on her own turf that she would even want to give _him_ the time of day?

In that moment, he found his decision made. Gallo might be everything she said... might give everything she'd hinted, but "what if..." was too dangerous to play with. Even if he didn't stay... even if he left with his pockets loaded, and headed for the rim, there was a good chance he wouldn't settle there. This girl... this city bred, upgraded version of a mob boss secretary was pulling hard on things he'd told himself he'd never have... somehow got him wondering if she might be a source. He could leave, but he'd be left wondering and eventually find his way back just to find out. Might _keep_ finding his way back just to be sure. What was the age-old saying? Curiosity killed the cat? But this cat didn't have nine lives; just a bit of luck and that wasn't going to hold forever. He didn't need temptation hanging round his neck guiding decisions consciously or subconsciously.

Something wrenched in the pit of his stomach, and he put it down hard. Maybe Leone wouldn't kill her. It wasn't like she was anyone important... just an air-headed courier. Maybe once Leone got the disk, he'd be satisfied. Riddick knew in his gut that wasn't the way it would go down, but that was the point. He refused to let himself think on it further. He couldn't.

When he looked for her, she was already looking at him. "' 'Nuff wood," he announced and turned back to the camp without waiting. She hurried after him, her load jostling precariously.

"You okay?" she asked.

_Am I so damn easy for her to read?_ "Peachy."

"Is your chest..."

"I'm fine," he snarled, and then thought better of it. He still had to be _nice_. "Sorry," he turned his head to glance at her as he modified his tone. "I'm fine. Just thinking."

At that her face shifted, still concerned, different flavor. "I'm sorry I'm so slow. I'll try again tomorrow. We'll make better time tomorrow, I promise..."

"You're good," he cut her short, hearing the old fear back in her voice. "I ain't gonna be dumping you so close to collecting Gallo's appreciation." The thing that might have been his conscience regarding her heaved in its death throes. She'd saved his life... twice... "But you'd be better off dumping me," he offered grudgingly as they walked. "You don't need me anymore. You know that, don't you?"

"What...? Of course, I need you."

"No, you don't. You follow the river down, you'll find someone to help you the rest of the way. Any ranger station or farm house will take you in, connect you with the authorities, get you where you need to go."

She stopped, and he turned to face her.

"Why are you saying this, Riddick?"

"I said I'd get you out. With me or without me, you're there - half day's travel down the river should do it. But with me is dangerous. I'm a complication. The one with a record." _The one who's gonna trade your pretty ass for cash._ "Without me, gettin' home is easy. With me, you're takin' risks. May get you hurt. May get you killed. I'm just bein' honest."

She stared at him a long time, the detail of her eyes veiled by the growing gloom, and then she shook her head. "No. I still need you," she said solemnly. "I'll have to take my chances."

Riddick felt it again... the quiet stirring of his neck hairs... a bare whisper of a warning. He stiffened. The last time he felt it so subtly was in the clearing where the cats had picked up his scent... but he'd been looking at her then too. He glanced behind her, taking in everything he could see and much that he couldn't. Nothing... and by the time he looked back at Coulter the faint sensation had faded. It was a fleeting premonition with no source... unless... Could it be her?

Riddick stared back, but nothing twitched. He wanted to dismiss it, but he knew better. Whatever it was that made his neck hairs react had always been accurate, even if annoyingly vague. He knew to trust it. That left him in a spot because even Leone needed her alive... _if_ it was her that was setting him off. But what could she do here? It was when they got to town he'd have to watch her. If she was a danger, that's where she'd have resources.

"Besides," she interrupted his thoughts, "you said you'd talk to Tony for me."

He shook his head and turned back toward the camp. "You're choice."

Whatever it was that was writhing in his gut heaved and rolled over. He'd given her fair warning. She'd had her opportunity.

Now _he_ called them even.

* * *

**-OoO-**

* * *

**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

[I had to edit some typos, so the note in these brackets was added a month after this chapter was posted. At this point in time, I've only received one review which is a little unusual. Please understand, I'm not begging for reviews, but I just wanted to say that if this twist didn't go where you hoped it would, please don't let that stop you from reviewing. I recognize everyone has their own plot bunnies and ideas where a story can go. You won't hurt my feelings if you say this one just deviated from your's. And if there was something else about the chapter you didn't like, I'd really like to know that too! I can't improve my craft without knowing where I failed. As I said in the beginning, "REVIEWS ALWAYS APPRECIATED - Good ones I enjoy, critical ones I value, and those that include specifics I love!" I also hope, if the path just taken didn't go where you think it should have, I hope you will stick around just a little longer and see it finished. I would truly appreciate a review on the overall story once it is done!]

**NEWS:**

Exciting news, if you haven't heard... A third live action Riddick movie is being planned. David Twohy is doing the script. Locations are being sought. Concept art is being drawn and I've seen a couple of them. Source: Mr. Diesel himself. Of the art I've seen, one had our hero on hands and knees crawling with a strange cat-like beast either harassing or accompanying. The other was Riddick backed up against a rock outcrop fighting a horde of horse sized alien predators with a knife and piece of wreckage(?). That piece is un-encouragingly entitled "The Final Stand of Riddick". I've heard no mention of the plot, but I'm just excited to hear that it seems to finally be on an official agenda. Oh, and it's supposed to be rated R. Just wanted to share that with others that would care :)

**THANKS:**

**TO MY FAITHFUL READERS - **This has been a long hike, and - believe it or not - I think I will actually get it done in your lifetime - lol. I can actually see the end coming together, and I just want to take this moment to say to those who discovered Turn About many chapters ago and have returned chapter after chapter to read and review - despite the horrid update schedule I've subjected you to - are special beyond describing. It is an especially sweet reward to see familiar names come in on the reviews and I find myself thinking of the old Girl Scout song about new and old friends... some are silver (the new) and some are gold (the old), but both are treasured. Reviewers too, for when they stick with you, chapter after chapter, with their kind and constructive words, they feel very much like old friends. Thank you!

And I would be wholly remiss, if some bit of this wordy gratitude wasn't aimed at Starnyx - a dedicated Riddick lover in her own right - who answered my plea to beta read somewhere around chapter 8. If you have seen any improvement in my grammar after that chap, it is due to her dedicated efforts (and I thank her for the patient education in the process). Through those efforts she has not only has earned herself "Gold Reviewer" staus - lol - but has become a true friend in the process :). Thank you, friend!

**WorshipperWarrior** - Thank you so much, again! I not only love hearing I've done well, but knowing _what_ you enjoyed is such a special treat. It is really a lot of fun working on descriptions. I can't go there, but there is so much on the internet. I found pictures of so many beautiful calderas and one with water so pristine that the huge boulders over 70 plus feet below looked like little rocks you could pick up with your hand just an arm's reach under the crystal clear surface. And researching the concept of a dar-gen... Of course I looked into stem cells (the greatest potential at the time I was researching had been found in fat stem cells!), but did you know they are actually developing a device in a university in Israel that will literally fuse skin together in a way to cause minimal scarring - somehow temperature is critical in its function. There wasn't a great deal of information available about it, but it was fascinating!

And, of course, once I get a current reality base line, I then get to add my imagination to the mix :). It's very gratifying to hear the results came across as plausible. Thank you for the continued praise, and thank you for your continued prayers for myself and my family. They are also treasured!

**Discolia - **Thank you so much! It really wasn't the original goal of the story to look at Riddick from so many new and different angles. The original goal was just to see what he would do when forced to deal with the most unlikely companion I could logically arrange to saddle him with - lol - but it did turn into a wonderful opportunity to look at him in many new ways (and Denise took on her own life in my mind as well). I have really enjoyed the opportunity to explore his character this way and it is especially rewarding to hear others say I haven't stepped him 'out of character' in the process.

I especially appreciate you praise regarding the caldera. I can imagine no higher praise than to have someone who has "been there, done that" tell me I've 'taken them there'. Your review made me giddy and I did a happy dance right there in my computer chair when I read it - hehe. I've never been able to go any place like this caldera, but I yearn to. Writing about it makes it real to my heart, and I am so glad I was able to share it.

**Nelle07** - Thank you! I hope to do update sooner than usual this next time around :).

**Tiberius T.** - I am so glad you enjoyed it :). I really enjoyed writing this chapter. My own love of nature is showing in Turn About, but it made sense to me that a man who would so disliked "returning to the brightness and everything I hate," might find interest and, perhaps, even appreciation for the opposite. Thank you for the praise and the review. I'm seriously hoping I can keep your curiosity up just a little longer :). I'm so excited.

**Vashti** - Did I get TOO complicated describing the complications? If that's the case, do call me on that! I would find knowing _what_ made you walk away valuable because, I'll admit, the dar-gen was indeed a challenge on several levels. I tried hard to find a way to gloss over it somehow, but it just seemed to leave a big hole in the way I wrote. I researched every other sci-fi show I could think of that had a skin regenerator of some sort in hope someone had given me an easy out - lol - but I had no luck. With nothing else to base its function on I had to start from scratch so I can only hope I didn't get it TOO bogged down in details.

But other than that? You liked it? I am so glad! And I'm so glad you are enjoying the characters. Some of their interactions have come right out of the blue. I've loved the way Denise has unfolded in my mind until she is as real to me as Riddick. It has made it fun to write :). Thank you for the review, the praise and don't hesitate to let me know specifics when I do something that drives you away from the story. I truly desire to hone my art, and my reviewers have been invaluable in that!

**vingirl89** - Thank you! Believe me - I can sympathize with computer issues and daily dramas. Part of this latest update delay was the demise of my old, refurbished laptop and the subsequent desperate attempts to recover data (more than one story - including several pages of this chapter) that I had failed to back up in a timely fashion from the now dead hard drive. Moral of that story - back up often and frequently (redundancy quite intentional)! But I had been saving up for over a year, and was blessed that there was a sale going on at Dell so now I have a new, new laptop (happy dance).

I'm glad you're enjoying the interaction between Riddick and Denise, because it has been fun to write as well :). The good news is I may be done sooner than way later, so I hopefully I won't keep you waiting too long this time.

**Stephanie Christina -** I loved your wiki compliment :). (more warm fuzzies) It was novel and appreciated :) And thank you for the one on canon too. It is so important to me to keep my stories within the framework of canon, at least to the best of my ability (have I mentioned my desire to knock together the heads of a few game designers regarding the origins of Riddick's eye shine - lol). That particular compliment, in my opinion, is one of the highest praises a fanfic writer can receive :) and I am honored. And I hope, after this, I won't keep you waiting too much longer... relatively speaking - hehe :).

**Aquamarine Alien -** Thank you, for your faithfulness! My update schedule is a frustration to me as well, but I am so thankful that you think my stories worth waiting for... that you like them enough to keep checking! I truly hope that I won't be keeping you on edge to much longer, at least in the case of Turn About. The missing pieces are finally falling into place. No promises, but maybe a wrap up by Christmas or soon after? I'll try :).

I really appreciated your comments about the depth of character and details. They are as real to me as story characters can get and it is very gratifying to know I am able to help you see them clearly as well. In fact, honestly, a writer really can't get a higher compliment - that they can take persons, places and situations that don't exist and make them 'real' for their readers :).

Thank you so much, and no apologies! I commend you on your English! It is a very difficult language to master - especially American English with all its assimilations and quirks pulled in from other languages. You have a very good grasp of it. I have the utmost respect for people who learn a second (or third or fourth!) language, especially when English is one of them! What is your native language, if you don't mind my asking? It really is a thrill to think my "fan base" is _international_ - LOL. Isn't the internet amazing in that regard?

**Josef Engle** - Hello, Josef! I am so glad you love my story! I dearly wish I could publish Turn About and/or any of my other 'My CoR' stories. The good Lord knows my pocket book would certainly appreciate seeing some return for all the hours I have invested in these stories - lol - but as Riddick and those elements are copyrighted, it can't be done without permission... that I'm aware of... I live in the US where the original holders of the copyrights also live. They can be pretty picky about copyrights here. Is there a legal venue for fanfiction that I am not aware of?

As far as finishing it, definitely on the "scanner" :). The end IS in sight and - God willing - I hope it will be done this year or very soon after! Thank you so much for the review! For you to say the quality could actually follow up to the originals is truly appreciated!

God bless,

Amita

**»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»**

**My promise to faithful readers:**As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.

The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("_only_" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between stories (only 4 of which you can see, unfortunately), 3 kids, (2 of them young; 1 a teen), a husband, the life that contains them all and other responsibilities on the side. Needless to say, writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.


	17. Chapter 17: Last Light

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 17**

**Last Light**

(Acknowledgements: Many, many, many thanks to Starnyx who - despite innumerable complications in her own life - made the time to beta this chapter!)

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Back at the camp Coulter dumped her load of sticks in the pile and began pulling out the ones she thought best suited to staring a fire. Riddick knelt by the firepit and began to clear it out, but minutes into the job, his little secretary interrupted him.

Dropping a half dozen branches beside the pit, she settled to her knees opposite him. "Let me do that. That much movement can't be comfortable."

She was right, so he removed himself to one of the logs and watched, ready to offer any advice she needed.

She dug into windblown forest debris in the pit and began pulling it out by the double handful. "This isn't too far off from some of the stuff you had me pulling together last night for the bed. Could we use this under the blankets? There's enough of it around here."

"That's the next item on the agenda. You're starting to think like a survivalist," Riddick answered, and she beamed.

She pulled out most the junk clogging the pit, and then began the careful process of building the layers of twigs and then branches over the dry matter she left in the center. When she had a proper structure built, he passed her a firebug. She crushed and twisted the little device the way he'd shown her and quickly stuffed it under the leaves and needles. She watched expectantly, but after a minute, she looked at him frowning.

Riddick saw the faint flash as the little 'bug' finally combusted and nodded toward the pit. Coulter looked back just in time to see the flames lick up through the leaves shriveling them into thin sheets of carbon that shattered and collapsed, but they burned long enough to set the twigs afire, and the twigs, in turn, caught the sticks. Before long, Coulter was tending a cheery little campfire, grinning from ear to ear.

"I did it on my first try," she exclaimed. "You didn't have to help me once."

"You pick things up quick." He wondered briefly how quickly she could learn to start a fire without a 'bug', and then dismissed the thought out of hand. She wouldn't need that where she was going. _Just be a waste of time. Shame really._

With the fire burning, it was time to turn their attention to the bed. Riddick pulled out the blankets, and she quickly had them seamed into a whole as they had done the night before. Working together, they kicked and scraped the wind drifted leaves and needles from under the logs and around the camp into a single, wide pile on the silver surface.

The pile came out a little thin so Riddick escorted Coulter into the forest to take care of her personal needs and collect a few netfuls of additional padding while she was at it, but the darker it got, the more reluctant she was to get more. After two loads, he pointed out that the bed was still a bit skimpier than the one by the lake, but considering the solution, she found herself quite content with its current state. Any padding was better than none so far as Riddick was concerned, so he had no cause to complain.

They finished wrapping the pile, Coulter doing the majority of the bending and tucking, and then stepped back to look it over.

"We make a good team," she announced cheerfully, but Riddick offered no reply.

Necessities done, they settled themselves on the logs by the fire. Coulter had every intention of sitting opposite him on the other log, but when an owl hooted in the distance, she quickly changed her mind. She sidled around the pit, and after a bare moment's hesitation, found herself a seat not even a meter from his.

"Hungry?" Riddick asked rhetorically as he dug in the duffle.

"Famished," she responded emphatically.

He pulled out a mangled bar and passed it sideways, receiving a smile in return. She had no difficulty opening the ration bars now, and bared the foodstuff with an almost violent glee. She pulled out an unladylike sized chunk and devoured it in one bite, closing her eyes as if to savor it.

"They don't even begin to compare to your fish or even your snake," she laughed at herself once the mass was reduced enough to talk around. "But, man, when you're hungry, they sure hit the spot."

Riddick grunted acceptance of the implied compliment, but ignored - deliberately - the strange sense of appreciation her smiles and comments caused. _No more of that._

He was grateful that she kept her focus on her food while they ate, and after the wrappers had put on their color show in the fire, Coulter had him pass her the wad of fabric that passed for her sewing project and settled in near the firepit to resume work. The low light meant she would probably have to concentrate, so he had hopes the quiet might continue. He had his own chore to accomplish, and pulled the can of spray lube and the smaller of his blades from their respective locations. It wasn't his first choice, or even his twelfth. It just needed to be done.

Coulter glanced at him sidelong as he sprayed lube into his hand and began to spread a thin layer over the stubble on his chin and pate, but she only shook her head. She refocused on her sewing, not saying a single word, but he could hear it anyway. ..._You're pushing it again, aren't you?..._ and she was probably right.

His face was a minimal chore, but as soon as he started on his head, he felt it. The ache spread quickly as the broad movements of his uplifted arm pulled and twisted the damaged flesh through both his chest and shoulder, and flicking the grease at the fire punctuated his aches with sharp spikes as hot and bright as the flares ignited by the lube hitting the flames. At least he now knew _why_ it hurt so - he'd _seen_ why - so he grit his teeth and endured. He had done it once before; he could do it again, and it hurt a little less this time. He didn't consider that a good thing. The less it ached, the more it was healing, and there was no way it would heal right with all the filler Coulter had had to cram the gaps with. He was on a deadline. The sooner they got to the city, the better.

"I can't wait to get back to civilization," Coulter announced a short time later, as if the thought had migrated to her. She set her needle down for a moment and scrutinized her battered nails, shaking her head ruefully. "I'm going to need a full manicure when I get home... regeneration, sculpting, polish, the whole shebang. These last few days have really done a number on my hands."

She picked up the needle again, but paused, looking thoughtful. Before she resumed she looked over at him. "I'm sorry for making this so difficult, Riddick."

As much as he had been appreciating the quiet, he found he rather welcomed the distraction now.

She returned to her sewing, adding, "How far are we behind schedule?"

"We 're not that far off from where I wanted to be," Riddick replied, pausing to watch her methodical movements.

For a fraction of a second, he had the wistful desire to ask if she had ever shaved a man's head with a knife before, and then rolled his eyes at himself. That thought was so far out of the quadrant that his animal just snarled in disgust. It was the ache talking there. There was no way he was giving anyone a knife _and_ his throat at the same time. His own movement resumed.

"We'll hit the plateau tomorrow, sometime early. Tomorrow night we'll be someplace rural unless we can hitch a ride, but I'm not countin' on it. It'd be better to stay out of sight till we reach the city."

"So where will we stay?"

"Farm, barn, shed, field," he replied. "Wherever. And, it will probably need to be a cold camp. We'll call that shot when we get there."

"A farm? But if someone sees you..." her voice trailed off, troubled.

"I'm not planning on being stupid," Riddick reassured in a voice that promised it was the furthest thing from his mind, but he knew what he'd have to do if that happened... if anyone recognized him. Be best if that could be done out of Coulter's sight, circumstances allowing. "Being spotted may be unavoidable as the population gets denser, but we'll be making an effort to travel under the scanners, and we've a few things going for us."

"Such as...?"

"They haven't started sweeping the woods yet, so I'm thinking they haven't realized I survived. That could change tomorrow, but until it does, we have the advantage 'cause they aren't even looking. When it comes to finding a place to stay, most civilian security systems won't be a problem, at least not the simple ones I expect to find on farms. I can bypass those in my sleep. And, I have a reputation. I'm a loner. Traveling with a girlfriend ain't my M.O.[¤]"

[¤ - modus operandi = method of operating/ way of doing things]

Riddick planted the idea subtly. "They'll be looking for one person making it alone, not two, sticking close. You'd be surprised how much expectation can filter people's view of the world." He wasn't counting on that factor, and it certainly wouldn't fool software if he let his face get scanned, but if she thought it'd help, he had some ideas he could build on that foundation.

"Don't think it will be a major concern 'til we get to town. Then there will be lots of faces. I'll just be one in a million." _If_ they weren't looking for him, _if_ he could keep her from tipping anyone off...

At that Coulter laughed, but then seemed to think better of it. "You are definitely NOT just one in a million, Riddick," she said with a faint shake of her head. "In fact, I think it's safe to say there are precious few like you in the universe."

Riddick twitched a smile because Coulter thought she was being funny, but it didn't go any deeper than that. It was rare he let himself think about it, but this girl had a knack for finding his sore spots, repeatedly, and the things she had been stirring up on this trip just gave it a little more sting. No home world. No people. No family. Her jest probed a hidden wound nearly as old as he was. _You can laugh. You know where you came from. Absentee mom and all, hope you appreciate it, 'cause that's more than I ever had._

Heritage and family were something most people took for granted... glib little stories about mothers and brothers_, _and grandparents rolled off their tongues like it was a norm and it was... for them. Early on, Riddick had learned to distance himself from those conversations... to find somewhere else he had to be, physically if he could, mentally if he couldn't. He'd built a wall between himself and the topic and tried to pretend he didn't care, but this girl kept finding cracks. Time to go somewhere else.

"You about done with that?" he indicated her sewing project to shift the subject.

"Yeah, almost." She took the shift in stride and straightened out the jumble of black fabric, holding it up. It looked a great deal like a tank top again. Thin puckers warped the fabric creating counter diagonal patterns across the chest space, but she'd managed to connect the right edges and it was looking nearly whole.

"Most the damage is pieced back together," she offered. "Just trying to get the incidental holes now. I won't know if I got them all until you actually put it on."

Riddick found he was impressed, especially considering what she had to work with. "Not half bad," he acknowledged. "Ain't many people that can do that now days."

Coulter chuckled as she lowered her hands, letting the tank top fold up in her lap. "Blame my dad."

No escape after all.

"He says he hasn't found a fabric regenerator yet that can repair a hole as solidly as a good old needle and thread patch job. He says regenerators are fine for your office wear or Sunday stuff, but work clothes aren't meant to be pretty and you'll spend more time mending than working if you rely on regenerators. Funny though, how busy he got after I showed him I could pull together an even seam." She shook her head, smiling. "Suddenly, there was always something else he had to be doing when a hole came along, and did I mind fixing it for him..." she laughed softly, remembering, "...and he was good at making holes. Dad did a lot of hands-on, physical work. But all that practice paid off, huh?" She looked at her work with a critical eye. "It's been awhile, but I guess you don't forget how to do this sort of thing. So, where'd you learn?"

Riddick smirked. "Basic life skills, Corisone Colony. Can't say I was too thrilled with the class when I had to take it, but it's come in handy since."

He was half-curious if she'd react to the name of the juvenile detention colony, but he didn't really expect her to. There were quite a few JDCs scattered across the galaxy, but most people didn't even know they existed. Corisone was one of the harder ones... a maximum security prison devoted to one last attempt to recover seriously delinquent youth before condemnation to hard time for the rest of their lives. Riddick tried to stop there before it went any further... before it led to Sigma 3 again... before it led to Carawa.

Carawa. It was the end of all that mattered; the beginning of everything else.

But, Coulter didn't react. Instead, she chuckled. "Who'd have guessed The Big Evil was so domestic. 'Way Jenner talked you're supposed to be evil personified. I could do your reputation _so _much damage. He saved my life... he cooks... he sews," she let her voice trail off blithely, grinning, and then busied herself with the tank top again, spreading it out and running fingers under the seams looking for gaps.

Riddick glanced at her side long with a raised eyebrow. There she went again, obliviously dancing on thin ice. If he were the sort who actually cared about his rep, her words would be a soft threat, but he didn't, and maybe she'd intuited that by now. _Not that you'll likely have the opportunity to muss anybody's rep. I expect Leone is going to be more interested in talking Gallo's disks than my life skills._

"As if I cared," he replied.

She paused to glance at him, her eyes thoughtful, and then returned to her stitching. "You're something more than just a survivalist. There's something soldierly about you. Was Corisone Colony a military base?"

Riddick shook his head faintly. "I was guild." No escape. None. Damn the girl. He tried to keep his answer short, but the words took him places anyway. "Least 'til my check got lost."

Lost. Yeah, that was one way to put it.

Corisone planned to give Riddick life skills, turn him into a blacksmith and bury him out on some primitive pioneer colony where he couldn't cause any more serious grief to the System, but by the time he was fifteen, Riddick had proven more than even Corisone wanted to handle. They'd decided to upgrade him to full slam early, but a judge had intervened and bought Riddick one last chance to go straight - a stint with the Grycov Mercenary Guild. They were the ones who had trained him. It looked to be a good fit and when he came of age, Riddick decided to make it a career. He was stationed at Sigma 3 and chosen to attend the guild's Strikeforce Academy on Sigma's moon within the year. He graduated a Company Ranger, Elite class, youngest to ever do so. But nothing good in his life lasted.

Sigma Company liked his records and arranged to keep him. Too late Riddick found out why. Wasn't his scores at Strikeforce that earned him Sigma Company's favor, impressive as they were. It was being raised in Juvie D and the decision to move him up to full slam early. He looked like he might be a 'bad boy'... just the kind of coreless corruptible Sigma Company was looking for to fill their ranks, because they were crooked from the commander to the cook and bottle washer, killing people that shouldn't be killed to prolong a war they were profiting from under the table. It was Sigma Company that was responsible for Carawa... or would have been if Riddick hadn't intervened. He'd tried to do the 'right' thing… tell Grycov, collect evidence… but Grycov didn't want circumstantial data; he wanted hard proof. Carawa was gonna be that, but Riddick couldn't let another thousand die to give Grycov his legal slam dunk. He'd done what they trained him to do... kill. He took out Sigma Company before they could take out Carawa. A thousand lives saved. One life screwed. His.

Yeah, 'lost' was such an innocuous word, but then it hadn't been a sacrifice on anyone's part but Riddick's. After he stopped Sigma Company, he was in the perfect position to play the patsy and save the guild's 'honorable' reputation, so Raspin Grycov didn't hesitate. But 'lost' did fit the situation if applied sidelong. Riddick _had_ lost... he'd lost everything... and so that was the word he offered Coulter.

"So you were a mercenary?" Coulter's voice pulled him back.

Riddick paused, not sure why he had let it turn personal on his end, too. Needed to keep it '_nice_' he supposed. "Was. Won't be again. Had a falling out with the guild owner when I disobeyed orders. He cut me loose... with prejudice."

He could see it in her eyes when she looked at him... another question... or maybe the same one. He could still hear her quiet voice last night... _What did you mean when you said, 'Tried to do something good once. Got screwed?'_

No way he was going to even consider going there with her now. She didn't need to know 'cause Leone didn't need to know, and Leone was the only other man in her immediate future. He was about to change the subject when his injuries conveniently provided an excuse to do just that. The slow burn building through his shoulder and chest as he worked detonated with the final stroke, simultaneously sending a broadband wave of hurt through his wiring. He caught his breath, a near silent grunt of pained surprise interrupting his thoughts. Her eyes narrowed, and then eased into sympathy.

Even as he grit his teeth and flicked the last load of lube into the flames, she was moving, folding up the tank top. As Riddick wiped the last of the grease from the blade on his pants leg and sheathed it, she got up. She headed straight for the duffle and put her bundle away, pulling out the med kit in its place. From inside the box she pulled one of the few remaining wipes and knelt before him.

"Don't argue. You _know_ you pushed a little too far just now," and without waiting for a response, she started wiping the leftover lube from his freshly shaven face and head, saving him the additional movements required to clean up.

"You're a piece, yourself, Riddick," she said quietly. "What's the old phrase... a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma[1]? Hard to know what to do with you," she smiled as she spoke, but her autumn thunder eyes were dark and troubled, and then she was standing and shifting behind him.

His animal grumbled, and Riddick - deliberately - ignored it. Her gentle strokes continued wiping the lube from his dome and from behind his ears, from the back of his head, from the nape of his neck, and then the wipe was tossed over his shoulder into the fire. It poofed up instantly into a small ball of flame, and before its ash had settled, her hands were upon his shoulders.

Riddick didn't need to ask her intent. As her hands started moving up his neck, he let his head fall forward. He didn't know what she meant, 'Hard to know what to do with you,' but she was in no position to do anything now. Later, in the city - maybe - but not now. He decided to close his eyes and trust her... trust the circumstances... for the moment. He was going to let himself enjoy it, knowing there would be few enough opportunities for such a luxury soon. Tonight, tomorrow morning... maybe - just maybe - the night after depending on where they camped. No, not many opportunities left at all. Once they reached civilization... roads, buildings, law, people, communications... once they reached that, he couldn't trust her anymore.

'Hard to know what to do with you.' It could go two ways. Hard to know what he would let her do; hard to know what she could do with him... He knew one thing she could do with him, and it would net her $850,000 credits. No two ways about it. Everything took on a different face once they stepped off the plateau.

But for now, he stopped thinking, stopped considering, stopped suspecting, and simply appreciated. She had become adept in knowing just where his pains were, just which muscles knotted tightest, and just which techniques and how much pressure to apply to ease them. Her small hands grew warm against his skin as she spread relaxation up his neck, down his back, and then through his shoulders. Riddick let himself sink into the rare pleasure as he had never let himself before, and knew he would never likely be able to do again.

Those places that were tender with deep injuries, she worked gently, light strokes penetrating _just_ deep enough to caress the muscles, to tenderly manipulate them. There was pain there, but it was good pain, healing pain that soothed the angry pain of the abuse he had inflicted. 'Don't scar' her careful strokes whispered, 'just loosen up a bit. You can still stretch. Let me show you.'

Healthy muscles got worked... deep pressure that loosened up the tight spots, untied the knots, and spread a sense of relaxation throughout his entire body. She had massaged him before, but he had never felt such a total affect. But then, he had always been 'watching' her - aware of every movement, where her hands were, what she was doing, ready to move in an instant if something felt wrong. He relinquished that tonight. Vigilance did not hinder his experience. Such an incredible sensation... to be able to trust... if only for this moment. Trust a girl ... carrying a gun... who he was going to trade for cash. If that wasn't irony, he didn't know what was.

When she was finished, he felt dangerously relaxed. Nothing short of adrenaline was going to kick start his system, and he didn't really want that to change. Had he ever felt this way before? He thought the answer might be yes - in that other _ignis fatuus_ world where love might have once existed - but to identify the moment took a level of introspection he would not allow himself. This trip had called up enough old ghosts as it was. He didn't need to keep visiting them.

"Time to hit the sack," he rumbled contentedly. "Tomorrow we leave no man's land. Have to keep one eye open after that. I want a good night's sleep tonight."

_Might be the last I ever get_, he considered wistfully. He was under no illusions. 'Lotta people were out to get him. Not all of them would insist on alive. He honestly never expected to see old age, but he planned to put off dying just as long as he could, and good nights' sleep weren't usually part of the equation, so he was going to milk this night for what he could.

"What if something tries to eat us?" Coulter looked, clearly bothered by the open grassland and menacing shadows under the trees. The protective walls of the caldera were absent and her bodyguard intended to take another night off.

"Anything comes I can't handle, you can shoot it," Riddick answered, standing. "You got anything you need to do? Once I'm horizontal, I ain't gettin' up."

She considered the woods, and then shook her head. "I'm good."

But, his other comment made her think. She paused and then touched the little camoed holster clinging to her shoulder as if just remembering it was there... again. "You really think I could?"

"Did it once," he answered briefly, but his mind was considering the future. He didn't need her carrying a gun - regardless of its size _or_ her skill - once they hit the shelf, but he knew better than to suggest she put it away. She wouldn't open her bag in his presence, so the mousegun needed to just disappear. _Tomorrow night_, he decided, _while she's sleeping. I can slip it from the holster. If she doesn't have a reason to use it, she'll probably never even realize it's gone. And, if she does... _

"I hope you're right," she wished fervently, and then followed him to the bed.

As Riddick settled himself, he found other thoughts meandering through his mind. If he wasn't taking her to Gallo, he needn't be quite so considerate. But, he still needed to be careful. They still had a ways to go, and he couldn't risk a scene, so she still needed to be willing. As Coulter warily settled herself against his shoulder, Riddick considered this new option, wondering what about that idea just didn't feel right. He'd have to think it over. He wasn't going to risk getting caught for a little pleasure, but he wasn't sure that was the reason.

Riddick slept lightly... or that had been his intention. They were still in the wild woods, with wild beasts about, but the effects of Coulter's last massage eased more than muscles. His sleep was sound and undisturbed, and as the night went on, his psyche sank to a level rarely visited... or at least rarely remembered in the waking world. It was a place he would have avoided altogether had he a choice - a place where memories dwelled, and where they came upon him with impunity.

Most often it was flames and stone and a sense of utter helplessness from only God knew where. And, maybe that was exactly it. Perhaps the great Sadist was giving him his own personal preview of Hell. Such remembrances did not usually follow him back to awareness, not in any form he recognized, but the sense of helplessness was a goad. At levels below subconscious, it drove him to excel, to use whatever gifts or advantages this body of his had, for whatever reason he had them, to prevent such helplessness again. He supposed it was worth knowing - part of why he was wired the way he was, what drove him - but it had come at a high price. It was the doctor at Altair that had revealed that little bit of insight regarding his subliminal activities, and Riddick was more than happy to leave any other opportunities for such edification behind with Altair's psychopia of drugs and analysis.

But, it was not flames and stone and helplessness tonight. Nor was it Jacobson or Carawa or any other remembrance pulled directly from his own memory. This one was completely new. He stood in an austere room made of pale metal, save for one large window of reflective glass. It was clearly an interrogation room, but instead of the typical table and chairs over which criminal grills and roasts would frequently play themselves out, this room held a single metal chair... with broad arms and wide straps of woven metal spotted and stained with spots of brown. The color was familiar, although there was nothing to confirm it. Any scents in the room had been wiped out by powerful antiseptics, the stench of which was still emanating from the drain in the center of the floor. It was clear that any interrogations that occurred in this room were not the traditionally legal sort.

He was wondering at the significance of this when he heard a commotion outside. The door slammed open, the sound ringing in Riddick's ears like a gunshot, and then two large men in tailored suits pushed their way in, struggling with a smaller figure in pale and pastels. Despite their size, their prisoner was giving the men a run for their money. And, long before one exclaimed in pain at the application of a sturdy hiking boot applied to his knee cap, Riddick knew who it was. The scent of florals had invaded the room, beating down the antiseptics and filling it like a flood. There was more than exertion pushing this bubble.

"Let me go!" Coulter screamed, "Tony will take you apart. You're dead meat, Leone. Dead! Meat!"

The fourth figure to enter was the formulaic example of a mafia don - slick white business suit that shed dirt as easily as it shed accusations, greased black hair in the most current style, a snippet of mustache and goatee trimmed just so, and a paunch that showed where a fair share of his ill-gotten gains were being spent. From his bling to his zing, the man reeked money, and he reeked dirty.

Leone laughed at the little secretary, oblivious to his men's pain as she raked her boot down the shin of the other man and tried desperately to throw her knee into a portion of his anatomy that might actually do some good. But, the man was wise to her and reacted with the hasty speed of one recently educated.

"Tony doesn't even know you're here, my dear," Leone laughed. "Don't you think word of Jenner's grab has got around? You can be sure Tony started looking for his pretty girl as soon as he heard, and there was nothing clandestine about my offer. It's still out there and he's been keeping tabs on it, I'm sure. He knows no one has collected... well... 'til now, but we'll keep that our little secret. Thanks to your friendly boy scout, there's no trail that leads to me above the ground or below. Your existence will dead-end with Jenner's ship... literally. You left enough blood and DNA at the crash site to get a legitimate positive ID. It will be a small matter indeed to arrange a change in the quantities reported found... say milliliters of blood to liters. Even Gallo will be convinced you're dead. Nor will the lack of a body be a great hindrance. There is a healthy scavenger population out there, I've been told, so there will be little reason to question the report that you were considered quite the delicacy." Leone smiled. "No. No one is going to come looking for you, Ms. Coulter. It's just you and me... and a few of my closest associates." At that, he laughed again. "Make Ms. Coulter comfortable, boys. We don't want to seem ungentlemanly here, failing to give the lady the only seat in the room."

Coulter shrieked in anger, invectives Riddick hadn't yet heard her use erupting from her mouth as she went wild. She kicked and screamed, spit and twisted, writhed and railed to little effect until she managed a feint with her knee that shifted to become a kick behind her. The goon in back exhaled sharply and folded with a high-pitched whimper, releasing her arm in the process. Her free hand swung around hard and fast, but not with a stinging slap such as she had applied to Riddick's face after coming out of cryo. This was no holds barred. Her forest ragged fingernails raked across the second man's face leaving bloody furrows across his cheek as she tried to yank free, but he didn't let go.

"Bitch!" he shouted. "You want rough? I'll give you rough!" With a sudden jerk and a forceful heave he had the girl off her feet and flying... straight into the wall.

Coulter hit hard and went down. She wasn't out, but she'd lost her advantage. As she struggled to pull herself up, to get moving again, Ripped Faced pinned her hard, barking orders at his companion, forcing Soprano to waddled, still hunched, to grabbed Coulter's other arm. She tried to fight again, but she'd been rattled good. Before she could get all her wits back, she was in the chair, arms strapped to the armrests, feet strapped to the legs.

Coutler heaved against the straps, jerking her body left and right, but nothing gave. The chair didn't even move. Nothing was coming loose unless Leone wanted it loose. Suddenly, Ripped Face was sliding a sheet of metal under her right hand, securing it with a clamp. It created a table of sorts and Leone produced a familiar silver satchel trimmed with gold. He flipped up the flap on the silver purse revealing the keypad as Ripped Face held Coulter's arm and loosened the strap. Taking the bag from his boss, he forced it under Coulter's hand so that her fingers rested on the keys before tightening the strap down again.

"Comfortable, missy?" he grinned, the livid red streaks across his face dripping blood onto her sleeve. "Not for long I expect. I'll be back in a bit to see how you're holding up. By then I suspect I'll be the pretty one." Amused by his own cleverness, the goon roared with laughter, and then grabbed Soprano by the shoulder to drag him, still staggering, from the room. The door shut with a resounding clang, and Coulter yanked franticly at her restraints.

"So anxious to leave," Leone crooned, "and we haven't even started yet. You see, my dear, there are so many ways to gather information... threats, drugs, devices... but I'm rather old school. The rules are simple. Give me what I want, and it all stops. If you don't make me wait too long, I might even feel generous... might let you go home. Make me wait, and you _will_ live to regret it, and then you _will_ die. Choose wisely because I'm not a patient man." He grinned. "Shall we begin? Let's start with her left hand. She only needs one to open the bag. Maybe that will give her a little incentive."

Leone was speaking to no one in particular, but in answer Riddick heard the distinctive sound of a switchblade being popped. Coulter's efforts to free herself went frenetic. She didn't say another word, didn't gratify Leone with a sound, but Riddick could see it in her eyes... could nearly _feel_ it in her eyes... unmitigated terror. And, when he looked around to see who was going to be doing the dirty work, he found the man reflected in the great mirrored window. The man didn't look the part of one of Leone's whistle slick heavies, but he held the switchblade with the casual ease of someone well versed in knives. Riddick looked him over, taking in the muscled arms, the shaved head, the black tank top and cargo pants...

Riddick jerked awake feeling like someone gut punched him and followed it with a shotgun blast of rock salt to his chest. He bit back instinctively on any sound as he blinked his eyes, taking in the sudden change of surroundings. No metal. No chair. No walls. Just darkened trees, fading moonlight... and Coulter. She stirred softly behind him telling him his reaction hadn't just jerked emotions.

"Riddick? you okay?" she mumbled thickly, not even properly awake.

"Yeah, fine," he answered low, and he heard her murmur something that faded out before it was even done as she fell back to sleep.

It was just a dream! _Guess maybe I have some conscience left after all. Gonna have to fix that. _

He felt Coulter against his back, warm and almost comforting, and pulled away from her.

Instantly, pain seared across his chest. _Meds runnin' out. That accounts for part of it._ And, on the heels of that realization he wondered if Coulter had put her doser back in the same pocket of the duffle... _For a man who says he don't like drugs, you're sure looking for them quick enough now_, he chided himself, and a chill went down his spine. Maybe those drugs weren't so safe after all. He weighed waking the girl to get her doser and ease the ache, making the remainder of the trip tolerable, against enduring the pain of travel, unmedicated, and refusing to play with the possibility of his addiction rearing its ugly head again. It was no contest.

He lay still, trying not to stress his chest, trying to relax, and hoping to go back to sleep. Between the dream and the growing ache, however, he found neither his thoughts nor his nerves were cooperating.

Through the trees, he had a window to the night sky over the clearing, and he watched as the near-full moon's influence was behind the horizon. It wasn't like the night in the caldera, or any other they had spent in the forest so far. This night was pristine and clear and without a single cloud to obscure the view.

And, the stars in this little window were different. He'd seen stars before. He'd seen enough to overload anyone's senses - they were his only company on many a long journey through space, their bright steady lights both guides and time keepers. Planetside, though, these stellar companions took on whole new personalities. Here the vast reaches of space were paler and stars... twinkled. As the moon's light faded from the sky, it steeped the night with a deeper shade of darkness, and he watched as the number of stars visible through his little window grew exponentially - stars and more stars, until they were the only source of light in the night sky. They were dimmer down here, pale refractions of themselves - most literally - but his eyes took in the little light they offered, and he found enough making it under to canopy to see... barely. That offered the possibility of movement without disturbing _her_. If he got out from under these trees, he'd have a better view. Maybe, it would give him something else to think about.

He weighed his options... the pain of movement against the distraction of the night sky. His nearness to Coulter so soon after the dream tipped the balance. The girl was poison to his stoicism. She stirred things up even when she was sleeping. Riddick decided he needed to put a little distance between them, literally as well as figuratively, while his subconscious dealt with her new role in his life.

He forced his muscles to move, bracing against the shock of pain that coursed across his chest. Compared to that wreck of muscle and nerve, his shoulder was a mere discomfort, but he treated both gingerly. No need to 'push it' just now. He set his jaw and eased himself out of the bed as quietly as one could. Considering he was dealing with emergency blankets _and_ dry leaves, it was a sorely disappointing level of quiet, but Coulter didn't stir.

It was a short walk to the edge of the clearing, and Riddick made his way carefully in the muted light, his eyes focused on the ground, wary of anything hidden in the gloom that would broadcast his relocation. At the tree line the light shifted as, unfiltered by branches, the starlight began to offer textures and details. It wasn't the kind of light you wanted to fight in, but there was enough to relax in. He found a trunk with a view... one that let him see the expanse of the heavens above the clearing, and that let him keep an eye on the camp, such that he could.

It was a risk leaving her unattended in dim of this kind, but not much of one by his figure. If he couldn't sleep... if she was going to keep him up bugging him in his _dreams_, he'd take this chance for a last few moments of peace and quiet in this wild place.

With no one listening, he let himself groan softly as he carefully settled himself on the ground. Getting up again promised to be an equally painful task, but for the moment, once he had his back against the tree, and his legs were stretched out before him, he was as comfortable as he was going to get.

He let his head rest against the rough bark as he looked up into the sky. The trees around the clearing formed a ragged earthly border of solid black between the silver kissed grasses of the field before him and the paler darkness of the night sky above - a contrast that accentuated the subtler hues. It was said there was no planet in the Milky Way Galaxy yet discovered more ideally suited to be a long-term observatory for studying space than Earth Prime. It's ability to support life, coupled with its unique conditions and 'just so' positioning in the Orion Arm - giving it an unparalleled view of space around it both between galaxies and into its own - without the need to import resources, ensured it remained the ultimate location for planet based space studies. Even with the advent of terraforming, no better planet had yet been found. To find a planet that met the litany of qualifications required... from an orbit in the habitable zone, to composition, to axis tilt, to rotation, to liquid water and on and on and on just to be considered for modification to support life alone... was hard enough, but to find one more perfectly positioned to study the rest of the galaxy? Earth Prime was still the standard all other planets were compared to.

But, he wasn't a scientist. He didn't care if the distant silver 'mist' shading half the sky interfered with luminosity readings or messed with polarization analysis. So far as he was concerned, this view was fascinating in its own right, for it was filled with a movement he was unaccustomed to seeing in such a vista. Unlike space, the turbulence in the atmosphere refracted the pinpoints of distant light making them seem to 'twinkle' and dance in place. It wasn't the first time he had seen the effect, but Riddick couldn't remember if he'd ever taken the time... if he'd _had_ the time... to simply stop and contemplate the simple beauty of stars twinkling through an atmosphere.

There was no moon now, no streetlights, no holo-advertisements or any other intruding light sources to interfere with the view. Every star with the brightness to be seen was getting its moment to shine and the darkened sky was lit, quite literally, with a million - give or take a few hundred thousand - scintillating stars. There were faint single 'pixel' stars that could only be seen out of the corner of the eye and great blue giants that shone like fiery beacons and everything in between. And, the colors... red, yellow, white, blue... even hints of green and purple... Then there were the nebulae. He could only see three, but their gaseous rainbows added even more color to a sky that seemed slate velvet strewn with scattered gems and diamond dust. He decided it was enough to occupy his mind for the time being if he let it.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long. It was less than an hour later that he heard Coulter getting restless, and when she didn't settle back down, he knew he was in trouble. He glanced over toward the camp. The light under the trees was dim, but the silver emergency blankets reflected enough light to give the camp a vague semblance of illumination. By that minimal glow he caught the movement of her arm as she reached over to feel his empty space.

_Ah, shit,_ he berated himself, _Forgot to tuck the blanket around her. She's feeling the cold._

"Riddick?" she mumbled as her arm came down on his void. "Riddick?" she said a little louder as her reaching became more intentional. The cold surface woke her nearly as fast as the cold dew.

She raked the empty surface, and then she sat up quickly. "Riddick! Where are you?"

He saw her scan the darkness around franticly and realized she was going to get a lot louder and a lot more frantic if he didn't do something.

"Here," he offered in a low voice, and he didn't have to repeat himself.

For the briefest moment, he thought he caught the faint reflection of the starlight in her eyes as she spun to face the sound, but it was gone before he could be sure.

She found him, her voice filled with relief as she exclaimed, "Riddick!" and she scrambled out of the bed. She made her way over the dark ground to him cautiously. "Are you alright?"

Riddick sighed. _So much for peace and quiet. _

"Fine," he replied as she drew closer. "Couldn't sleep. Decided to watch the stars instead."

His comment drew her attention upward, and he heard her gasp softly. "Oh my, they're beautiful! Have you ever seen so many?"

"Not from the bottom."

"And they sparkle," she said quietly, awed. "I've never had a view like this. I wonder if there is too much vapor in the air back home to see them clearly because I don't remember ever seeing stars like this anywhere, not even from the cabin in the mountains. This is spectacular."

"This certainly ain't the view you'd get from a city," Riddick agreed grudgingly. She was here. He didn't expect she'd be leaving. He didn't have to like it, but if he was smart, he'd keep playing _nice_. "Too much industrial off gassing. Too many lights."

She didn't think twice, didn't even ask. She just sat down beside him, staring up at the sky. Riddick stared at her, but she was oblivious to her own boldness.

"This is incredible," she said. "Oh, the fun we could have."

"We?" Riddick asked cautiously.

"My dad and I. We used to play a game," she paused, and then she glanced at Riddick and grinned. "Have you ever played Constellations?"

_Played_ _Constellations?_ Riddick considered. Every solar system had their own collection... but how did you _play_ Constellations? Did he really care? He glanced at her, noticing the way the starlight played with her silver face. _Other things I might like to play with_, he thought, and very intentionally he let himself imagine touching that smooth skin. No question. He wanted to.

_Payday,_ he told himself, _with benefits._

It was more than an indulgence of imagination. It was permission. He knew what he had to do. He didn't care. He _wouldn't_ care. Caring just got him hurt, and in this case would get him killed... or worse. His dream had been her last hope, his last chance. It slammed the situation out on the table hard, and yeah, it had been a gut check, but it hadn't changed his mind. Like it or not, he had to embrace the role his dream cast him in because there weren't any options here. He had to do what was going to keep _him_ living.

He didn't know if the thing in the pit of his stomach could rightly be called a conscience, but he felt it shift again... a faint wave of nausea as a flashback of Coulter's terror and the reflection of the switchblade torturer in the window crossed his mind. Last hope... last chance.

No. This wasn't a choice. This was life or worse than death... _his._ He was guessing Altair might even be an issue. They weren't going to want to just let him go and, if they got their hands on him again, he could be certain his luck had run out. He wouldn't get a second chance. He wouldn't even get a first one.

She had to change. He knew she wouldn't. In fact she'd make it hard as hell without even trying. In his mind, she had to change. He had to put down this semblance of a conscience she'd roused, whatever that meant for the future be damned. It had to be deliberate, and it started with reminding himself why he'd kept her alive.

She _wasn't_ a girl he had spent the last five days surviving with.

She was a payday… 25,000 on the hoof. She was an object... a thing... a commodity... something to be bought and sold. Just like everything else in the galaxy.

He knew it was going to take more than that. He had a hard time believing what she'd pulled up in him in so few days, but it stopped here. From now on, she was a paycheck, nothing more, and he was going to systematically remind himself of that at every turn.

But, that came with a hitch because he couldn't _treat_ her that way. Playing 'nice' had a new imperative. He had to keep her trusting, keep her close enough he could 'trust' her, or at least keep her from acting if she was playing her own game. He had to find a new balance... downgrade her status and keep it 'nice'.

_Gonna be a damn fine line to walk, but gotta do if I'm gonna get paid... if I'm gonna get outta this in one piece._

The whole idea left a sour taste in his mouth for reasons that had nothing to do with conscience. He could lie when he had to, but it went against his grain. It was like he was going against something programmed in his basic operating system. It just never felt right, but that didn't stop him from doing it when he needed to. It was just this time he would be living it... playing all friendly while setting her up. It would be a real fine line, and he had to play it to the hilt because, if Altair was out there wanting to disappear him again, it wasn't just his freedom on the line.

He decided he did care about her game.

"No. Never have."

"It was a game my father and mother played. They traveled so much it was really worthless to learn any more stars than were needed to nav by, so if they found themselves someplace with a clear night sky, they would sit out under the stars and create their own. After she left, my Dad taught me and if we had a good night at the cabin, we would stay out and play. I already knew my home planet's constellations - the ones we could see through the vapor veil - but playing was a good excuse to stay up late. We'd spread a blanket on the porch, turn out the lights, and make up new ones until I fell asleep, and he'd have to carry me into bed. We made up new ones every time we played, but there were a few that stayed the same year after year... our own private family constellations. We had the Sugar Crystal Mountain and Whiskers the Cat... Whiskers was a little group of stars not much bigger than that half dozen stars right there-" she pointed up to a small distinctively bright cluster which Riddick could have hid from sight with the fingers of one hand if he tried, "-but he had whiskers this long." Coulter held her hands up to the sky measuring out half a meter.

Riddick let himself chuckle at the bizarre little notion of a cat with whiskers thousands of light years long.

"And, there was the Snip the Squirra, Tigon the Pantera, the Heart and Wrath..."

"Squirra? Pantera?"

"Animals native to my plantet. Squirras are of the squirrel sort, but they have long ears like a small rabbit. Still climbs trees, though. Noisy little buggers." She laughed. "Panteras are big cats with stripes and manes. Can you tell most the ones that stuck were ones I named as a kid?"

"Heart and Wrath sounds a little serious for a kid."

"Oh, yeah. That was one of my mom's. Dad showed it to me every time we played. He tried so hard to keep her part of my life even though she wasn't. He said no matter where they were, whenever they played, she'd find some set of stars near the pole to name the Heart and Wrath. It wasn't until she took me camping that I found out the Heart and Wrath were a set of special weapons - a sword and a dagger - that embodied the philosophies of her people. She said she couldn't go home again, but the teachings of the Heart and Wrath were what made her people who they were, so she takes them with her where ever she goes."

"Blades? Sounds low tech and militant... war based culture?"

"Low tech? No, not really." She shook her head. "But, yes, they were warriors, just not necessarily war-like. It was all about discipline and control."

"You keep sayin' 'was' and 'were'."

Coulter glanced at him for a long moment, and then looked up again. "Mom said her planet is dead now. Genocidal invaders from space. She wasn't there when it happened, so she doesn't know who or why or how many survived, just that survivors are scattered..., few and far between. She promises that someday a great leader will rise up to bring her people back together again, that a great leader always comes when her people are in trouble, but it's been decades now. I really think it's just a wild, desperate hope she clings to. I can't really blame her though. Who wants to see their entire culture reduced to a footnote in galactic history in the course of a single generation?"

"That'd be rough," Riddick acknowledged.

He supposed that might be worse than having no culture at all to call your own, but he wasn't sure. He wondered how Coulter felt about it. It wasn't her culture, but it was part of her. There was something in her voice, but he couldn't quite identify it... sadness? regret? Didn't really matter. Wouldn't matter at all soon.

"What's on your father's side?" He didn't even know why he was asking - convenient distraction from the ache he supposed, but it was going places he usually avoided.

Coulter shrugged. "Nothing, really. I've never met anyone from his side of the family. His parents died when he was young in some sort of accident. He lived with his grandparents on a hydroponics farm somewhere. When he graduated tri-school, he was young and brainless - his words," she chuckled ruefully, "and decided to go exploring before he settled down to be the next generation of farmer. He made a few deep space crossings to other star systems via cryo ships and when he got back, his grandparents had died and the farm had been sold. His inheritance, what was left of it, was just credits in the bank, and it wasn't enough to buy back what he'd lost. 'Always stop and think,' he tells me. 'Don't rush. Get all the facts before you act because you can't fix stupid with love nor money.'" She shook her head. "He took his credits and left... went exploring again. He tried his hand at a few things and finally settled into a job that let him keep moving around. That's how he met my mom. He said by the time I came along, he was ready to settle down and grow some roots, but my mom... Well, you know the rest."

_Both sides dead_, Riddick mused. _But she's still got something. 'Think I'm actually jealous. Subject change._

"So what's the rules to this game?"

"None, really. Just find a set of stars you can make look like something and help the other person see it. Ummm... Like those, right there." She pointed up into the night narrowing down the target. "The ones about a hand span to the right of that red nebula. See how there are five equidistant stars in a bit of a line and three in a triangle at the end, a little too far away to fit the pattern?"

Riddick searched and spotted the set she was describing. "Found 'em. Now what?"

"From now on, those stars shall be called Snake Dinner in honor of that poor defenseless beast you dropped on my head and so cruelly beheaded," she said with a wicked grin, and then laughed. "Just before you roasted it so adeptly."

"Hmmm," Riddick raised an eyebrow. "So, that's how it is."

He scanned the sky. He didn't intend to do any pointing, so he needed something easy to describe. He found a red and green star not too far apart from one another. A scattering of stars around them formed a rough oval shape. It wasn't too hard to make a fish of the deal.

"Go over from Snake Dinner about four hands left. Go up one more on the diagonal. The red and green stars... they're the spots on the side of a fish."

She searched the sky hard, her eyes seeking the cluster he described. After a couple moments she asked, "Do you mean the ones kind of left and under the Whiskers' bunch I pointed to?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," she smiled. "Are we adding Fish Dinner to the menu?"

Riddick started to say yes, and then changed his mind. "Was thinking about it, but no. When I went swimming, I saw a fish... great granddaddy of a fish... as long as I was tall and the spots on its side... they glowed like those stars. He ruled the waters. That's him. I'm callin' those stars King of the Lake."

"Oh, wow," she said. "I would've liked to see him."

"No, you wouldn't," Riddick said flatly. "Where he was swimmin', water was so clear it looked like a freefall to a bottom you couldn't see."

"Oh!" she exclaimed softly. "No. I don't think I would have liked that part at all." She shuttered faintly, and then got a hold of herself. "My turn." She scanned the sky.

The process evolved as they went. As she began to venture from their shared experience to things she had seen in her travels or in her THX hikes, and offered anecdotes to explain them, he did the same. Their collection of constellations grew. Before long, it included the Perwista Palace from Cargesteen 2 where she had ended up having to meet a chancellor and represent Gallo in a parlay for distribution rights when their local contact turned up dead, and a Rullger Mark 12-37 Short Range Plasma Rifle, which was the first plasma rifle Riddick had trained on. There were a good many other things as well. It was, to be sure, an eclectic collection, and she showed active interest in his stories, however innocuous he kept them. Riddick wasn't too worried about telling her things he'd seen. The way his life worked, where he'd been rarely had bearing on where he was going, and he didn't have any reasons to return to any of them anytime soon.

He was making sure of it.

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**-OoO-**

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** WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:  
**

**NOTES: **

1) Credit for this beautiful corundumous phrase must go to Winston Churchill.

**NEWS: **

Have you heard that a new Riddick movie is being filmed? It's true! No more hype and rumor - I've seen concept art and set pics of Vin Diesel in costume. Go to and type 'Riddick' into the search. Look for "Untitled Chronicles of Riddick Sequel (2013)".

I better hurry before all my stories become AU _before their even finished_ - LOL.

** THANKS:  
**

**Silver Dog Demon**

I LOVE you reviews. They are chock full of insightful comments, legitimate questions and the things you like. What more could an author ask for! A more thorough answer to both your reviews is being sent by PM so I can give you a proper response to everything :) Expect it in the near future - I'm almost done :). I appreciate EVERYTHING you've said and brought to my attention, and I look forward to any others you care to invest your time in. Thank you SO much!

**JadeObsession**

I am so glad to hear you're firmly hooked! I hope to hear from you again so I know you didn't 'get away' :D.

**»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»**

**My promise to faithful readers:**As much as I hate it when other writers get 'distracted' by other stories and don't update the one **I'm** reading as fast as I'd enjoy, I have discovered that there are times other stories insist on being written. The result? I have four stories currently 'in progress' for your perusal – as they are all of a 'back story' nature in Riddick's timeline they would occur thusly: Saved by Grace, Be Still: Chances, Turn About and Nigh Unto Christmas.

The good news is that each story has been generally plotted and outlined, and only ("_only_" LOL) needs to be fleshed out. The bad? That takes time, especially when divided between stories (only 4 of which you can see, unfortunately), 3 kids, (2 of them young; 1 a teen), a husband, the life that contains them all and other responsibilities on the side. Needless to say, writing time comes at a premium. What it means for my readers is that updates to this story may be intermittent. I do, however, **promise** it won't be abandoned barring death or other equally drastic life change. Updates will come, please be patient, (and, of course, be aware that **feedback** is an incredibly powerful motivator ;o) but until then, may God bless you all the time in-between.


	18. Chapter 18: Turn About

(I created a lot of this, but not Riddick, as stated in COPYRIGHTS listed in chapter 1)

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**Chapter 18**

**Turn About**

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Riddick greeted the morning alone. Not alone in the sense that Coulter had gone back to bed and left him be, but rather in the sense he was the only one conscious to see it. Much as she had the first night, Coulter had managed to insinuate herself up against his side, this time snuggled up comfortably under his arm, her head leaning against his good shoulder. It wasn't a bad fit and, for his part, she was a source of warmth against the night chill. For her part, he knew his presence was as much a literal blanket as it was the security sort. It still felt strange... and more than a bit twisted... to be holding her in such a familiar fashion considering his plans, but he suspected it would score him some good points in the trust game - either building on hers or convincing her she had built on his.

It was still dark when he heard the morning chorus start to build, birds more intimately tuned to the cycles of the planet than he. Slowly, the sparkling midnight blacks and blues of the night began to shift on the horizon behind the trees. As light steadily infiltrated the heavens, Riddick watched the stars fade until the planet's northernmost star and the last of their invented constellations was lost to the growing wash of pale. It was a stark contrast from the last few mornings. No more fog; no more eerie silence… the world was returning to a semblance of 'normal,' and he was one step further from the elusive havens of peace he had found.

It wasn't too late. He could still leave. He could head back up the mountain...

It was a temptation, but he knew he wouldn't. He had no yen for the blocky buildings in the distance, nor for the confining ship that would take them away from this temperate paradise, but the peace and freedom offered here were deceptive. Tangiers would not let him remain undisturbed for long. He looked down, gingerly brushing his hand over the bandages that wrapped his chest. If the bandages weren't reminder enough, the pain of the gesture certainly was. He could no longer afford to forgo the city. He _had_ to see a doctor within the next few days or there would be a price to pay.

But a few odd hours , give or take, wasn't going to push things to critical. He could put off just a little longer. Riddick let his hand fall back to his lap and stared out over the meadow, drinking in the quiet. He'd actually needed this. After Altair, after the wracking drug filled 'treatments' that warped mind and body, after the hell of going through hard withdrawal, and Shadow dancing with Jenner and his merc hunters on Breken 4 so soon after...

He could have done without the cats, but mentally? Yeah. He probably would have survived without this breather - that's what he did best... survive - but this time, this place, even with Coulter for company... It'd been damn near a vacation. It had been good for him and he was sorry it had to end. Only God knew how long it would be before he'd have a chance like this again, and Riddick suspected it would be a long time. In fact, he was pretty sure the only peace God intended him to find would be the Rest-In-Peace kind, or more likely, Rest-in-Pieces. But not today. At least, not right now. Right now, there was quiet, and Riddick was going to take it while he could get it.

The coming morn trickled into the clearing, slowly removing the spell of night. The grass eased back to real from silver, and a young buck lifted his head regularly to inspect the perimeter as his sheltering darkness began to fade. The buck had taken up residence in the clearing about an hour after his little payday had ceased her chatter and fallen back asleep. The animal was well aware of their encroachment into his perimeter... had been from the beginning. And long before it stepped into the starlight, Riddick had been aware of it. He had heard the buck moving along the outer pathways, and pausing at every vantage that let it stare at the intruders. Riddick had kept still, hoping Coulter would do the same, and after around twenty minutes of scrutiny, the buck had decided they were worth risking.

The animal had looked to be cast in sterling and soot. His antlers spread and forked, their spiral pattern making them appear to be spun of twisted silver rope. Its coat, on the other hand, was rough brushed silver streaked by dark matte lines that swallowed the light creating the effect that the animal was striped with gaps of shadow. The buck entered the clearing cautiously, stepping high, head up, ears forward, tail flipping, ready to bolt as it stared at human additions to his landscape, but as Riddick kept his peace, as Coulter offered no movement, the animal grew more daring.

Three bounds distance from the forest edge, the buck dropped its head below the high grass and jerked its antlers hard. Immediately it came up with a mouthful of grass. It stood, watching the two, as the vegetation protruding from its mouth waved with the rhythm of its jaws, growing shorter and shorter until it finally disappeared altogether. The buck stared at Riddick, and then dropped its head again. Five more times the buck dropped its head to claim a mouthful of grass and watch the intruders as it chewed, but each time a little more of the wary tension melted from its body, and its head remained below the grass a little longer. On the sixth, after the grass had vanished, the buck tipped its head and looked hard at them, as if it were trying to remember what it was about these new shapes that had frightened it. Nearly a minute passed and then, with a shake of its antlers and a stamp of its foot, it turned broadside and started searching the grass in a more focused manner.

They weren't forgotten. At random intervals the buck would pop its head up and look in their direction as if the reassure itself it hadn't been imagining things, and then with a similar head shake and foot stamp, it would dismiss them again. Riddick considered the effort that would be involved in acquiring venison for breakfast, but quickly dismissed the idea. Even if he weren't walking wounded, he doubted Coulter would give him the liberty of an extended stalk. Instead, he contented himself with enjoying the animal's presence... in appreciating this last bit of quietude and calm that the forest was giving him for as long as it lasted, and so he shared the clearing with the stars and the buck until morning came to chase them both away.

It didn't happen all at once. Riddick watched as the growing light transformed the buck from silver and shadow to gold and slate, as his antlers shifted from sterling to ivory, and as the light began to infuse the animal's steps with new wariness. He looked over at Riddick more frequently, but the convict did nothing to encourage the animal to leave prematurely. It continued grazing, but its steps were no longer focused on seeking the next succulent. Instead, it began to move with casual intent back to the trees. At the edge of the clearing it raised its head again, giving Riddick one last glance, and then - with a flick of its black tipped tail - it was gone.

Riddick continued to watch as the dusk clinging within the shelter of the forest began to lose ground and began to retreat back into the foliage. Slowly, color and definition returned to the depths, the energy of flitting wings and spasmodic rodents replacing the sedate grace of the nocturnal deer and twinkling stars. Night switched out for day, and still Riddick sat. The fact was he rather dreaded moving, not only for what he would be leaving behind, but for what he would be taking on. Moving without the girl's painkillers was going to be a chore, but he was done with them. He didn't know if the faint sense of _want_/_need_ he felt was psychological or physical, natural reaction or start of an unnatural need, but it would go unanswered. He would_ not_ risk addiction again.

Riddick sat until the girl beside him began to stir, and then - only then - reluctantly took charge of starting the day. "Rise and shine. Last day in the woods. That ought to make you happy."

"I'm up..." she mumbled, "last day..." and then he felt tension slide into her muscles as the meaning sank into her brain and woke her up. "Last day in the woods? Really?"

"We hit the plateau, it's downhill from there. The shelf below is pretty much farms and farmland 'til you hit the city limits. Might still see snakes but not much chance of Mougus or Fever Cats down there."

Riddick watched the girl as she peeled herself out from under his arm and stretched. She felt safe. Didn't know what she was inviting. Her mistake. It was more for appearance that he reiterated his earlier invitation. He already knew her answer. "We'll need to be watching for a different kind of hunter down there. You sure you still want me riding escort?"

She didn't disappoint. Her stretching hesitated momentarily - her sweater top lifted and draped to hint at the thin feminine form beneath it... a form revealed more pleasantly feminine than he'd previously thought courtesy of the previous night's fishy dinner - as if she were rechecking her answer, and then, with a brief glance at him, she nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"Then it's time to be moving," he announced, resigned to action. But the view had encouraged. "Things to do. Places to be."

He stood, biting back a groan as his wounded flesh protested the sudden change from comfortable stillness to the twisting and shifting that movement entailed. He knew it would get more bearable when the injuries became reacquainted with motion as they stretched and loosened up the degree they were able, but it wasn't going to get better until it was professionally repaired. _Two more days... max_, he promised himself. But without the girl's painkillers, it was going to be a l-o-n-g two days.

When he turned, she was also on her feet and watching him. "I'm so sorry. I totally spaced the timing. The painkillers have worn out, haven't they? I'll get the doser right..."

She had already turned for the camp, but Riddick stopped her with a word. "No." As she looked back, surprised, he shook his head marginally. "I'm done with them."

"Are you sure? You can't be comfortable."

His payday worrying about his comfort. That was _exactly_ why she had to go. Attachments weren't healthy. She was trying to get him killed. "I'm not, but I don't like drugs. Not going to depend on them."

She stared at him a moment, then finally nodded. "Okay. You're the one that has to deal with the consequences. If you change your mind, let me know." And she left it at that.

There wasn't much to do with the camp... typical routine; breakfast, private necessities which - at least during daylight hours - she could pull off by herself now, salvage materials and put out the fire. It was almost tempting to neglect the salvage part, but they weren't out of the woods yet... figuratively... and there was no sense leaving bright shiny objects around to announce where they had been.

She took on anything she thought he'd find uncomfortable, which was most everything, and left him to direct operations from the tree trunk. It took a little longer, but considering the alternative, he was fine with it. He had her use the rest of their water to put out the fire, and when there was nothing left but damp charcoal and an underlying stench of wet brimstone beneath the flowers. When she was finished, before they departed, she pulled out the tank top and held it up.

"I wish I'd had you try this on last night," she said ruefully. "I didn't expect you to quit the painkillers."

"I'll manage," he rumbled, but he kinda wished she had too.

She did most the work bringing it down over his head, but getting his arms through simply hurt. It was more than his shoulder now. Simply moving hurt. Yeah. It was going to be a l-o-n-g day. The tank top was tighter around his chest than normal, and over the bulk of the bandages - as thin as SpyderWrap was - it felt tighter still, but putting the 'Here-I-Am' white of the bandages under something darker was its own kind of relief. There was a twist to the way the seams went together that shifted the fit and pulled sections of the bandages against his chest, but it wasn't wholly uncomfortable - yet.

As he stood, she worked with quiet intensity to pull together the little gaps that hadn't been obvious in the slack fabric and reinforced the ones that looked chancy under the new stress. It was a rough job to be sure - best for distance only - but it was a better job than he could have done, and it was needed. The less obvious they could appear, the better off they'd be. He hoped it would be temporary, that maybe he'd be lucky enough to find the shirt of some hulky farmer left in a barn or hanging on a post, but he was realistic. A build like his could be hard to cover with luck. At least, now, he wouldn't be sticking out like a totally sore thumb.

"That's probably the extent of it," she finally stepped back and eyed her work critically yet another time. "There's just a limit to what I can do considering the damage and my skill level. I can sew, but a seamstress I'm not."

Riddick snorted. "Better one than 99 percent of the women in the galaxy. Better one than me."

At that, she laughed. "I should hope I'd be a better seamstress than you. If not, I've got whole lot more to talk about than Richard Riddick can cook and sew."

Riddick chuckled, and watched as she returned the thread and needle to their respective sewing kits. She offered him his, but when he considered the movement of putting it back in his cargo pocket, he declined. "Pack 'em both. I'll get it later."

She did, and then hefted the duffle to her shoulder, exactly as he expected. This time Riddick let her take the bag without comment. If nothing else, she had proved her determination, and he had no desire to carry it if he didn't have to, especially today. He considered any distance it cost them a fair trade off.

"Where to next?" she asked.

"Water, then down," he answered, and she grinned.

The woods were quiet... relatively speaking. An occasional bird song accompanied them from a distance, but it was rare that Riddick couldn't get an eye on the singer. That and the tunes these birds were singing were wholly different from the cat calls. They also found themselves being scolded by some kind of squirrel, and Coulter giggled at the way his gray tail flipped with each warning bark sounded. His perch was a branch about a meter higher than Riddick's head, and Riddick was surprised when Coulter picked up a pinecone and threw it at the creature. The brittle little projectile smacked against the branch beneath the beast, not six centimeters to the left of its furry little feet.

The squirrel gave a startled shriek and went flying backwards in a twisting splay legged leap for its life. It latched on to a thinner branch behind it and swung like an out-of-control circus artist, nearly spinning completely around it in its wild efforts to get away. The creature managed to launch itself at something thicker and scrambled back to the trunk, racing to a higher vantage where it began cussing Coulter out in the vilest language known to squirreldom. Coulter laughed so hard she dropped the duffle, and it only took her reaching down for another pinecone to send the animal running for an even higher retreat before continuing its tirade. Riddick found himself chuckling as well, and wondering just where Coulter had intended her little rocket to hit. She'd been off center, but she hit close. If she'd actually hit the thing, she might have knocked it out of the tree. Not that he thought that short a fall would have hurt the thing, but were circumstances a little different, he might have been willing to take advantage of it. Roast squirrel for lunch? That would be worth the delay. Unfortunately... today... it wasn't worth the pain.

Coulter recovered the duffle and they left the angry squirrel behind and headed for the ravine. Riddick could hear the water before he smelled it – of course he smelled precious little these days. As they approached... as he knelt on one knee at the entrance... he could feel as much as hear the flow of air and the steady reverberations that pushed out from between the walls like the roar of an angry leviathan. Riddick checked the tracks outside to ensure nothing had gone in recently that hadn't come back out. He didn't expect anything this 'late' in the morning, but even deer-types could become dangerous if cornered, especially if their only escape was through you, even more so if they had antlers, and the waterfall would mask his and Coulter's approach. The sudden appearance of two predators - Coulter's forward facing eyes would mark her as one whether she was or not - was sure to cause a panic.

But the way seemed clear, so they entered the rift and began the careful trek down between the walls. The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast at its widest so Coulter let Riddick take the lead. And then it wasn't just the sound and the feel... suddenly, he could smell it. The air coming at them, generated by the thunderous flow up ahead, pushed the girl's perfume behind him and Riddick could scent the cataract ahead in the air. He inhaled deeply, appreciating the cool flavor of wild water in a near pristine land. The fresh scent of the hot spring was just a bare touch of a note, but the sharp edge of the river's volcanic origins - the minerals, the faint chemicals in the rocks the water ran through – was clearly evident to him. And even this, in its violent unchanging constancy, was a different kind of peace that he would soon be leaving behind.

However illogical, the thought was almost painful. He did not enjoy the life he led. It was a challenge and it gave him a grim satisfaction to best those that came after him, to prove his superiority, but his only reward was to keep on, keeping on... more of the same. He lived that life only because it was the only one available to him. This girl with her deceptive caring was an aching reminder of a kind of a life he would never know. This place... this girl... they had opened a wound, and the sooner he could put them behind him - permanently - the better.

The path was relatively well worn, mostly flat sand washed in by water, obstructed once by a half buried tree trunk and occasionally by fallen stones which required careful navigation as they wove through the short twisty canyon. Depressions filled with hoof prints on either side of the tree and deep gouges in the wood revealed the differing methodologies of the various animals for traversing that obstacle, while sand between the stones showed where the nimble feet of many of the forest residents found much of their footing in the gaps between. Riddick, on the other hand, found his footing atop the fallen debris and a careful glance back showed Coulter doing the same. As they went deeper, the air around them soon took on a chill, and then grew damp with the mist of the waterfall as the rush of water became a subtle vibration they could feel through their feet and in the air... and on in his chest. One last jumble of rocks littered their way, and they traversed stone to stone until they came around the bend and beheld the great spray of violent water cascading down from the dark wall behind it.

This was nothing like the dainty little waterfalls that Coulter had found so beautiful. This spewed from the wall in a thundering arc of solid spray that pounded down into the pool below it. The roar was deafening, the high walls containing and reflecting the sound back as effectively as an amphitheater, and this wasn't just a vibration, this _pounded_ against Riddick's chest. It echoed and reverberated in every slash and laceration shaking the raw nerve endings and trying to vibrate the molecules of derm-glue apart. He felt the freedom to groan under the cover of the roar as he crossed his arms over his chest, hoping to buffer the vibration, but it did little good.

"Get the water," Riddick shouted and was further irritated by the wild twinge his injuries gave him when he was required to add a visual to the command. She had her hands over her ears. Evidently, it seemed just as loud to her.

Coulter nodded, and scrambled past him to the water's edge where she ripped open the duffle and pulled out the Swish stick, testing the water the way he shown her.

The secretary was moving quickly and efficiently. He saw the green reading light up, and she put the Swish stick away, trading it for a Steribottle in the same movement. Coulter filled it, activating the sterilizing cycle, then set it aside and pulled out the other. While one bottle ran, she filled the second and set it to running as well before putting it back in the duffle. She put her hands over her ears again as she nodded her head with the display on the first bottle, counting off the seconds till completion, and then she was moving again. She filled her hip bottle and then filled the Steribottle again. She didn't wait for it to run, but activated the cycle and shoved it in the duffle. Coulter barely had the bag closed before she was vacating as quickly as she could, and she wasn't even waiting for him. She pushed past his position and led the way out as fast as she could.

"Oh man, oh man, oh man!" she exclaimed after they had exited the ravine and put a little distance between themselves and the entrance, "that was actually painful. Who knew water could be so loud."

She had dropped the duffle and was rubbing her ears. Riddick refrained from doing the same only because it would stretch the muscles through his chest.

"Acoustics of the walls amplified the sound," Riddick agreed. "Not my first choice for a watering hole, but we won't be going back."

That perked her up. "That's right! We're out of here. I'm so excited, Riddick, I can't thank you enough."

"Don't thank me," he put back. "I'm getting' paid for this, remember?" _And you're not gonna like who's payin'._

She looked at him funny and then smiled anyway. "Tony won't disappoint you. I'm sure of it."

_He ain't gonna have a chance, girl. He ain't seeing you again. Too risky_, he thought, but out loud he answered, "It'll get me where I want to go."

"Where's that?"

He would have shrugged, but the movement was aborted before it could even begin. "Anywhere but here." He wasn't going to discuss his future plans with a payday. "Let's go."

"Right behind you." She grinned, and snatched up the duffle ready to fall in step.

_Yeah. Way too close behind me, but not for much longer. This Boy Scout run's solo._

Riddick set his jaw and set a decent pace. It was going to hurt regardless, so he figured it might as well be worth it. It was going to wear on Coulter, but he suspected the chunky buildings and nice straight rows of crops would spur her on. She was going back where she wanted to be... unlike him. As they walked his eyes drank in the last of the wild green growth trying to fill his memory banks, wishing he could get scenery like this to show up in his dreams instead.

The terrain was much the same as the day before, and they again kept to the tree line in the shade and under the cover, but as they put the meters behind them, the canyon depth slowly began to decrease as the ancient volcanic layers that formed it began to peter out. The flow ended suddenly, but they got lucky. Riddick found a detour down that required a minimal amount of encouragement on his part. Maybe her victory over the side of the caldera helped because compared to that, this little nine meter slope was nothing, and she mustered the backbone to tackle it relatively quickly. They'd see what the edge of the plateau did to her.

With the end of the flow, the land went through another abrupt transition. The species were much the same, but suddenly the growth was much older, the trunks were thicker, the branches more twisted, and there were great skeletons of grey wood interspersed. By comparison, the forest behind them - while well-established - seemed, almost, new. Someone knowledgeable of the life spans of the various vegetation could put a reasonably accurate date to the last big eruption, but Riddick knew that wasn't him. All these old trees were telling him was that he was screwed. These ancient reminders of what the woods behind them had once been... of what it would become... were just a reminder of the old growth he'd left up on the mountain, but there was no going back now.

The campsite had been the first definitive evidence of man's intrusion into the wilderness, but it was not the last. It wasn't long before the path Riddick chose along the river morphed into the bare scar of foot traffic - an animal trail taken over by wider feet. There was no recent evidence of biped travel, but its existence was enough and within the hour Riddick sensed the drop off. It wasn't anything he could put his finger on... maybe a subtle change in the way sounds carried to him from the distance or - when the air flow allowed - the almost imperceptible addition of scents lifted up from the valley, but there was a great sense of openness ahead that he could almost feel. Riddick sighed. _Knew it was comin'. Vacation's over._ _No sense gettin' emotional._ But, his pace slowed as if to delay the inevitable. If Coulter noticed, she didn't say anything, but when she caught the first glimpse of the distant city through the trees, she shrieked. If he hadn't been aware and expecting some reaction, he would have killed her. Even prepared, her sudden exclamation caused a jerk that seared through his muscles.

"Riddick! I see it! I see the city! We're getting so close!" She did a little dance, and then spun around to look at where they'd come from. "I can't believe we made it!"

Riddick didn't answer right off but turned himself to cast one last regretful look at the paradise he was losing. The river canyon meandered but was wide enough he could look up the absence of trees nearly as far as the caldera and to the great green mountains beyond. The cloud cover was burning off with the heat to the day, and his mind's eye could see the golden glow spilling down through the high leafy canopy to wash over the ferns that covered the forest floor in a million verdant colors... could see the bell shaped trunk woven of a multitude of heavy vines merged into a whole, still lined with bark of its victim... could see the little hover bird whose movements were so precise... the whorled snail, the King of the Lake and even the sad remains of the two magnificent Gryphyian Cats, their olive striped coats and muscled bodies left to rot in the valley. Wasn't that the fate of everything? Especially anything involving him?

"Yeah," he finally said tersely. "Let's get out of here."

The plateau was a sharp edge of rock that plummeted near three hundred meters before spreading out into a broad shelf of fertile land surround by a vast slate ocean. This land, crossed and hatched by fields of crops delineated by mobile water dispersement tracks and roads, pushed back until it butted up against the river which had wound a dark sparkling path across the green floor to curl lazily around the city on one side separating the green from the grime.

It was a stark contrast - the near side of the river the soft, varied shapes of things alive and growing, even if artificially arranged, the other harsh and dark... bare earth tones, garish synthesized colors, and the sharp, hard edges of urban sprawl and modern architecture. The latter had spread to swallow the land from the river to the sea like a malformed cancerous growth. Buildings jutted up from the ground, growing in height near the city center, and on the other side he could see the space port, recognizable by the tarmac of geometric pads of dead, artificial stone surrounding a squat collection of wide structures painted a uniform tan. Distance ate the details, but it was all already, oh, so familiar. It was the last place he wanted to go, and Riddick silently cursed the necessity, but a necessity it was.

As they approached the edge, Riddick found his luck holding. A small barriered lot prevented people from taking vehicles further, but provided a place to park while they explored on less intrusive devices, and a rough road disappearing over the edge promised an egress down. The start was going to be rough, as high up as they were, but if the road were wide enough to cut the view... He hoped Coulter could stomach it.

Another plus... no vehicles currently parked in the lot. Considering the place's appearance, he did not find that entirely suspicious. The weeds growing up in and around the barriers indicated the place was used, but not overly. Big cities like the one below offered people a lot to do and getting to _these_ woods was a serious endeavor. Planetary week cycle was not something he had gleaned from the onboard computers, but the evidence and the odds put them in the workweek. He was willing to trust it for the time being. It would be a good thing... cut down on possible conflicts because the fewer people he encountered in Coulter's presence, the fewer chances he'd have to revert to type and do something that would jeopardize everything.

He followed the path to the parking lot and paused by a sign that said, 'Entering designated wilderness area. No hunting. No littering. No feeding the animals. Animals in wilderness area are wild and should be considered dangerous. Do not approach. Violators will be prosecuted.'

"Hmmm," he heard Coulter behind him. "Wonder if they'll accept a plea of self-defense."

"Let's not ask," Riddick returned.

He didn't waste time, but head straight for the exit, and no sooner than they reached the lip, then Coulter came to a stop, and - unceremoniously - sat down in the road.

"Oh, God," she whispered, breathing hard with her eyes fixed firmly to the ground in front of her. "That's a long way down."

The road slipped over the edge and veered away from the river sharply. It ran parallel to the edge of the plateau with a downward slant Riddick put somewhere around 13 percent. After 30 meters, it hair-pinned sharply coming back toward the river, immediately disappearing behind the first leg. Switchbacks. After that first turn, the rest of the road wasn't even visible unless you moved toward the edge, which Coulter wasn't going to do... willingly. The view that had got her was the road and then nothing... absolutely nothing. She could see down, down, down vista to the farm land below, with nothing but thin air in between... a lot of it. No wonder she was freaked. The drop wasn't as sheer as it seemed, but it was as close as it could be and still manage to fit a road on it... sheer enough that even a drop from one road surface to the next could be potentially fatal. Similar barriers to the ones that enclosed the parking lot hugged the outside edge of the roadway, but compared to the drop on the other side they would seem rather frail.

Switchbacks meant they'd be covering 10 times or better the vertical distance from top to bottom, but there'd be no sudden stops at the bottom. If he could just get Coulter moving, he was sure she would make it. The road was a solid surface she could keep her eyes on all the way down.

The road also told him the vehicle technology he could expect below... limited hover was his guess. The fact that there was a road at all, and the height of the barriers was a good indication. Add to that the turns were too sharp for wheels and the treatment on the surface to prevent erosion. It looked old, but wasn't seriously worn or rutted. Hover spread vehicle weight more efficiently and put less wear and tear on the surface. It was good to know because there weren't too many hovers he couldn't hotwire if the need came.

Riddick stopped and turned his focus to Coulter. "You got down the stairs. This is easier. It's a road."

"It's kilometers high," she whimpered, staring at ground as if it anchored her. One arm clutched the duffle, and the other her purse as if they were flotation devices that prevented her from drowning.

_Damn. Time to play motivator again._ 'Play' was the operative word. There was nothing in him that felt like being 'nice' to her at the moment. He hurt, and the last thing he wanted to do was sit here and have to talk _anyone_ into walking down a _road_.

He pressed into her floral domain and crouched in front of her so his presence dominated her awareness. The gentleness he used to lift her chin was not feigned although it was as much for his benefit as hers. Luckily, she didn't fight him. That would have hurt more. He forced her to meet his eyes and immediately the impact and subtle tension he had come to expect from her fear-filled gaze hit him. Her eyes were back to thunder and autumn, deep browns and rusts encircled by dark roiling stormy blue grays that almost shifted as he watched. What was it about her that he sensed her fear so keenly? That he nearly _felt _it! It wasn't like he could smell it through that altered crap her skin oozed.

"It's _meters_ high and you only have to take it one step at a time." He forced patience into his tone. "No drops, no grabs, no blind footholds. Easy stroll down a flat surface. You don't even have to enjoy the view if you don't want. Just keep your eyes on the road."

"You make it sound so easy," she protested, "but it's not."

"Yes, it is. You got the guts, girl. You work them out every time you have to psyche out your brain on those THS climbs you do. Tell me your gut don't react to the view."

"It does," she admitted breathlessly, "but I know it's not really real. I'm not really in any danger if I fall. I can push through it. But this is real... and it's so high..."

"But no danger. No chance of falling. This is safer than THS. It's a road."

"You've almost got me convinced," she said, a plea, and she shuttered, her chin slipping off his hand. She broke his gaze but didn't revert to the desperate staring at the ground he pulled her out of.

"You're in more danger keeping my company than walking down that road. Don't let this stop you so close to gettin' home." he offered. The twinge his words triggered was minimal. _Need to work it a little harder. Conscience ain't all dead yet._ It was a goal, but a little part of him wondered if it was a good one. Felt like he was trying to kill something important. Did it make sense to kill yourself to stay alive? "You beat the stairs, and those were high _and_ real. Danger was real too, but you did it."

"I beat the stairs," she repeated tentatively, then looked back up, catching his gaze again, not quite convinced.

"I'm walking this road too, remember?" he assured her. "Just follow me."

"Okay," she answered shakily, "I'll try."

Riddick stood carefully. The 'nice' thing to do would have been to give her a hand up, but no way was he even going to try. He watched her struggle up on wobbly legs and take a number of deep breaths before reaching back down for the duffle strap. She almost staggered taking up its weight, but he heard her whispering, "I beat the stairs. I can walk down a road." It took several repetitions, but she finally looked at him, the fear in her eyes leashed. "Let's go," she said tightly, "before I start thinking again."

Riddick took the lead, careful to take the inside track. The view on the outside was a catch 22. It revealed the network of roads which broke the distance to the bottom into steps, but some of those steps down were pretty high. Better to keep Coulter's view limited to the one she'd already seen with a two meter cushion of earth and a fence in-between. Coulter took up position behind him, and he heard her repeating her little mantra regularly.

Once they started, they actually made decent time considering they were only dropping six to fourteen meters for every hundred they walked. Riddick guessed they'd end up covering nearly four kilometers worth of back and forth before they hit bottom, and as they zig-zagged their way down, both came to appreciate when the path brought them back to the river. The water leaped and fell down the mountainside in a constant, ever changing series of waterfalls and rapids, and as the day quickly grew hotter, with the wind lifting up from the shelf feeling dusty and dry, the cool mist of the river became a moment to refresh before tackling the next leg. The road designers had tried to be scenic and keep the river a focal point of the drive up, but the lay of the land limited the opportunities. Some legs were short little jaunts there and back again returning them to the river before they even missed it. Others were long winding roads that held switchbacks of their own, but before they hit bottom they had to say good-bye to the river altogether and both regretted its absence.

Riddick found the wind an annoyance for another reason. The constant air movement narrowed the effect of Coulter's perfume, but in the rush up the rock face, the scents from the valley below were quickly mixed with those of the trail ahead and thoroughly homogenized... no help at all in determining what to expect further on. Only the nearest scent sources made it through with any identity, the rotting turtle that had died, wedged upside down under a bush by a passing vehicle; the bunches of brilliant red flowers that clustered in the partial shade of the barrier posts, the fox den burrowed in cliff side near the eighth turn down. It was a little like traveling half blind, but he had gotten used to that... relatively. He comforted himself with the thought that his time under that current limitation was finite, and that the payoff for the hindrance was going to be well worth the inconvenience.

For her part, Coulter focused on putting one foot in front of the other. He knew she was keeping her eyes on the road, but there were times he could swear he felt her eyes boring into the middle of his back. There were distinct disadvantages to being paranoid when someone was depending on you for their strength and sanity. Twice near the top, when a corner offered an unexpectedly immediate view of _down_, she froze, but Riddick only had to push in close, placing his body between her and the sights, and remind her, "It's a road." She would shake herself out of it, literally, repeat her mantra, and keep going.

The closer to bottom they got, the more she relaxed became until she was very deliberately sneaking brief glances from safe sections of road and her mantra had changed.

"I beat the stairs, and I will beat this."

The first time he heard it, it was desperately hopeful, but by three quarters down it was confident, or at least spoken like she intended to believe it. And, then it didn't matter. There was no view. At the bottom of the plateau was a monstrous collection of stones fallen from the heights creating a talus field heaped, piled and strewn across the slope at the plateau's base. These stones were every bit as big and chunky as the stones they had descended outside the caldera, but a road had been carved through this ragged debris. As the stones began to build up on either side, they began to form a canyon and Riddick found himself exchanging moods with Coulter. He didn't like canyons, with their limited exits and height advantage to others. He especially didn't like canyons with nice flat roads that offered little to no cover if someone decided to take advantage of your confinement. He had no reason to think anyone was present to partake of this advantage, but it didn't matter.

Coulter, on the other hand, breathed a huge sigh of relief. The last view of _down_ had shown they were almost there, maybe seventy five meters of down left - although they'd be covering a lot more distance than that to get there - but with the 'protective' stone walls around her, she suddenly felt safe, and it was reflected in her face, her step and her movement. Every rock was interesting, and she looked at them with an odd awed wonder as if she had never imagined she would live long enough to see them. If he gave her time, he wondered if she'd start hugging them. Riddick mentally shook his head. Once they hit bottom, if she went nuts and thought to try hugging him again,, he was going to kick her on her ass. No way he was putting up with that without painkillers.

Suddenly the space between the walls was filled with a dull, low hum... a soft technical hum!

Riddick's sucked breath as he spun, his ears panning his surroundings looking for the source, ready to dodge. They quickly narrowed the sound down to something low... his level... behind him... and when he saw Coulter, he knew.

She was looking nearly as surprised as he was and was feeling a lot less pain. He bit down hard on a groan as the movement caught up with him full. The girl was swinging her purse around and clamping it under her arm, her face puzzled, and then the sound came again, slightly muffled. Her face changed to one of revelation, quickly followed irritation.

"Ah, nuts!" she said in disgust. "That's the low power warning on my note/book." She heaved a big sigh and then noticed his face. "I'm really sorry," she said contritely. "I was reading before I went to dinner and didn't even realize I'd left it on. It kept its charge drawing off the ship when I was in cryo, but there're no radiant power sources out here. It's been running off battery since the crash. I bet it's going to be dead by time we make the city." She pouted and shook her head. "I don't even remember what chapter I'm in. It feels like forever since I was curled up in my hotel room reading." But then she looked at the stone walls around them as if for the first time. "But this is it, isn't it? The final gateway to civilization... no more forest! No more being hunted by wild animals! We'll reach the city by tomorrow night, won't we?"

"Should. Maybe sooner," he answered tightly.

The pain was easing, dropping back down to its constant, dull roar. He turned and resumed his pace. He couldn't leave the pain behind, but if he was going to be feeling it, he was going to get something out of it.

She clapped her hands and gave a little skip of excitement as she started out after him, nearly dropping the duffle in the process. "Oh, I can't wait!" She picked up the pace as she reseated the strap, pushing up closer, so she could talk to him without having to raise her voice. She took up so close behind she had to slide over so she wouldn't step on his heels. "What is the first thing you want to do when we hit town? I want to get a room and take a shower," she continued hardly giving him time to answer. "I want a hot shower with oodles of soap and shampoo, and I want to get out of these clothes."

That thought had merit, but he was certain she wasn't thinking what he was thinking. They still had some time before they got to Breken 4, and a lot of that would be down time... here to there time on a journey too short for cryo. He needed to insist on one cabin. There were a good number of reasons for doing that that had nothing to do with his deficiency, but it might make ending it easier. Proximity would provide a whole lot of opportunity, and he wasn't taking her to Gallo. He let himself do a little fantasizing, and only cut it off when the results were going to become more obvious than was safe. Wasn't easy. But it wouldn't be long. _She's not a somebody. She's a payday,_ he reminded himself deliberately. _Won't matter what's done to her in the long run. Leone won't care if she comes in feelin' a little used._

But he still had to be careful. Was there a way he could 'encourage' some potential recreation that wouldn't send her straight to the captain? _Street doc might have something to help in that regard._ His let his imagination play with that idea for a bit and just as deliberately ignored the niggling trace of scruples that tried to say that wasn't his style... he'd always liked his women willing. But if the drugs worked the way he hoped, she would be. And, she _wasn't_ a woman, he reminded himself yet again. She was a payday. A walking cred collection. What happened to her didn't really matter in the long run, because she was dead already, she just didn't know it. She'd been sentenced the moment Leone's bounty hit the street. Jenner tried for it and screwed up. Now he had her, but if it wasn't him, it'd be someone else. Riddick very deliberately didn't let his thoughts stray to other possibilities... protective possibilities... reward possibilities... long term temptation possibilities. He wasn't going to let himself consider those other details now. The aftermath couldn't compromise his freedom. He was just taking advantage of a situation. Wasn't this his plan from the beginning? He was just reverting to type... the mass murdering serial killer that he was...n't.

Something in him turned, revolted, but he ignored it. It _had_ to be this way. He squashed his residual reluctance, pounding it down hard, forcing the institution of his own new mantra in its place. _Payday. Nothing more._ _Only nice to keep her dumb._

"I don't care if my hiking outfit has acquired permanent wrinkles being packed in here so long," she continued, unaware of his thoughts as she swung her bag a little forward. "This dress is so trashed, I never want to see it again." She grinned in anticipation. "oh, yeah. That's exactly what I want. .. a long hot shower in a stall equipped with spa pulse massager jets ..." She sighed dreamily. "Clean hair, clean me, clean clothes... That's definitely where I want to start, and then I want to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet that has everything."

"Something wrong with my cooking now?" he teased looking at her sidelong.

Of course, if she could actually be persuaded... there was a lot of potential there. He'd pulled a frail out of the cryo tube, but she'd held up under the punishment and picked things up fast. They could kill quite a bit of time finding out what else she could do and learn... if her perfume didn't kill them both first.

But drugs might still be safer.

"Oh, no!" she returned quickly. "Your cooking is excellent. In fact, your fish is fantastic!" She laughed. "I just want some fruits and vegetables, lots of vegetables, and I want something fried with some sort of sauce to dip it in. How funny is that? I almost never eat anything fried. And, I want chocolate... I don't care what... cake, pie, hot fudge sundae, whatever. Just so long as it's chocolate. I deserve it after this!" She smiled at him. "What about you?"

If she were asking about food, he didn't really care, although the chocolate sounded good if she was paying. Truth was he'd find something to like wherever they ended up, but so far as his agenda... excluding recreation...

"Shower'd be good. Med-clinic. Food. Clean clothes. Not necessarily that order."

"The clinic!" she exclaimed. "How could I forget? That is definitely a priority, but we can't go in like this. Too many questions. We're going to have to pay a premium as it is just to keep them from reporting a mauling if they've the same laws as back home..." She paused, and then added, "Whatever the dar-genning costs, Riddick, I'm covering it... personally."

He looked at her in surprise. She had to know he didn't have the means... unless she knew he had her jewelry after all, but it sounded more like she planned to cover it out of her own pocket whether she could recoup it from Gallo or not. That was unexpected.

"Why?" He wasn't taking on any new debts that would interfere with his plans. They were even.

"Because a lot of things could have happened on this trip that didn't. All things considered, you've taken better care of me than I deserved, and I'm grateful."

Riddick stared at her a moment and then gave his head a twist in lieu of a shrug. "Works for me," he accepted, but his tone was more casual than he felt.

This girl said the oddest things at the oddest times and for some reason his neck hairs twitched at this one. He put eyes forward and glanced around surreptitiously looking for another reason, but nothing announced itself.

"We're eating with chairs and tables and forks and spoons tomorrow tonight!" she suddenly announced exuberantly, all seriousness thrown aside. "I'm going to get a shower! I'm going to sleep in a bed! I'm going to get something chocolate! I'm so excited! I can't believe we're finally getting out of here."

Riddick learned more inconsequential trivia about Denise Coulter in the next half hour than he'd learned the entire trip. The answers he gave to her incessant questions were equally trivial and many were even accurate, although they were generic enough they couldn't come back to haunt him. He wanted to tell her to shut up; he wanted to tell her to get further behind him where she belonged; he wanted to tell her to leave him alone, but there was something infectious about her enthusiasm. By the time they hit the bottom, he was just almost looking forward to the city himself. Almost. _Big_ almost. But still, almost.

_This is how the other half lives,_ he thought. _The big half that don't have to hide their face from scanners and can walk in any store they please._ There were a few places he could go where he could do that... places dominated by his type... the wanted, the outcast, the anti-social... but even there he had to be careful because those types usually felt like they had something to prove or were themselves always on the defensive. For many, violence was the main currency, and bounty hunters knew to look for targets in those places as well. There really was no place that didn't require back-watching. Even a paradise like this had its Gryphyian Cats, but Riddick preferred an honest threat to one out to make a profit at his expense.

And then they hit bottom.

"The end," Coulter said quietly as they approached the end of the talus field where the road spilled out into the open.

Riddick slowed a little, scanning the landscape he could see beyond the stone walls, but all was quiet. He was half considering leaving her behind to check more thoroughly when she laughed out loud.

"You know, I bet someone could make a movie out of something like this. Although I bet the heroine would be someone a lot saucier than a secretary like me..."

"You don't think a secretary running errands for a mob boss is exciting enough?" Riddick was only giving her half his attention. He had no reason to think anything was coming. It was more by habit he was cautious.

"Not for a movie. It's not the mob boss part I don't think would fly," she laughed lightly. "It's the secretary part... even one working for Tony Gallo. Let's see, why would a girl be carrying secret information if she weren't a secretary running jobs like me? It'd have to be something exciting... with a twist in it. Maybe she'd be his girl-on-the-side turning evidence that her boss wants back, or... Ooh, I know... she could be an undercover agent." She laughed again, then paused thoughtfully. "But, I think they'd have to hire you to play you. I can't think of a single actor that could pull you off. You're just so... unconventional."

Riddick wasn't certain that was a compliment.

"Who do _you_ think should play you? You're such the rugged, unexpected hero."

_Hero?_ That term... applied to him... came as a bit of a surprise, and it was bizarre to think how close it had come to that. He still couldn't believe the thought of settling in System space had even crossed his mind... let alone to take a chance on a _girl_! No. This was real did not expect his end to be happy, and he actively intended to put it off as long as he could. _Not this time, sister. Sorry. No heros. No happy endings. Ain't possible... not for me and that screws things for you._

"Wouldn't know," he finally answered. "Haven't been to a movie since I worked for Grycov on Sigma 3. Don't know any of the names or faces people watch these days. Don't care either." He only mildly surprised himself dropping two proper nouns in the same sentence. It wasn't like it was sensitive - any old news article on the subject likely had both in the same paragraph - but it was unusual that _he_ was so free with it. Symptomatic of his mind set he guessed. He'd become half comfortable with her, and the information would be inaccessible soon enough.

"Grycov?" she said in surprise, as if the name had meaning. "Do you mean Raspin Grycov? Head of the big mercenary guild? Is _he_ the guild owner you disobeyed?"

"Yeah," Riddick answered sourly, regretting his slip - he couldn't even think of the man without wanting to kill him, but the guild owner remained out of reach... for now. Riddick hadn't really expected Coulter to know who he was talking about. You didn't expect a city secretary to keep track of merc guilds, but then who knew what this one knew. And, Grycov's guild wasn't a total stranger to the media. The SOB rarely let a good PR opportunity go unmilked, and Riddick had provided him with a shipload.

"Why?" He wasn't sure it mattered, but where this girl was concerned, he had questions of his own.

"It's just..." Coulter started, but trailed off. She was quiet a long moment. Then, as they hit the entrance of the stone canyon, she muttered, "Damn, never enough time when you need it."

Something about the way she said it struck him wrong, twitched his neck hairs, but as he started to turn a jolt of danger set every follicle standing straight up. In the next, a dozen men in uniform, armed with an assortment of weapons aimed at him, stepped out from behind the trees around the parking lot. They advanced quickly, moving to surround him, and Riddick knew he'd let his guard down too far. Had Tangiers been tracking them by satellite all along?

_I should have smelled them. __Damn her perfume. __ I would have smelled them if Coulter hadn't pushed in so close_... And although his very next thought was, _Where's is she?_ He already knew she wasn't there. Because he could smell the men surrounding him now... because her presence beside him had vanished.

And, he didn't have to wait for the answer.

"You're quite the man, Riddick," he heard Coulter say, but her had voice changed... bolder, more confident, no more bubbling, and there was something else... a hint of regret? "It's been a real pleasure traveling with you, but I'm afraid it's time we parted company. Do me a favor and put these on." There was a metallic flash as she tossed something toward him.

The object might have landed near his feet, but he caught the flash out of the corner of his eye. He turned and caught the object before it hit the ground, ignoring the sear of agony the sudden movement caused. He knew what she'd thrown even before he caught them. The manacles had sturdy metal cuffs with a thick flat bar of flexible links in between. Denise stood in the middle of the road several meters distant, her courier bag open; her little pistol in her hand. _Loose change, my ass. Nice weight_, he judged_. Crush a skull or two well enough..._ And then thinking back to the cat he added, _nearly did. _

"And, I'm sincerely sorry if it's uncomfortable, but for the safety of these men, I'll have to insist on the backside position." This time he could hear it clearly. She _was_ sorry. "But first, if you'd be so kind, take two fingers and toss your knives... _all_ of them... in there." She indicated a thorny bush off the road.

Riddick ignored the police and faced Denise. "Say please," he demanded coolly, meeting her eyes, and this time she didn't back down, and she didn't look afraid.

Her pistol barked twice. Riddick felt a sharp zing on either leg as she popped a fastening off the outside pocket of his cargo pants on either side with two well-placed shots.

"Please," she smiled prettily, and at that moment he knew for certain the whole ditzy secretary thing had been an act.

Oh, she needed him all right... not to get out of the forest, but to collect the bounty. He'd been had. Royally. He suddenly had a choice. What was he going to be in her eyes? A human, or a human who acted like an animal. Then again maybe he was something else altogether... an animal acting like a human. What did _he_ want to be?

Deep question.

Whatever that answer, he knew he wanted to get out of this alive. _ Ah, damn. And, here I thought I was to be the one collecting the payday for a change_, he groused idly. _Guess I can't complain. She's only doin' to me what I had planned for her and she pulled her trickeration square... What's it they say? Turn about is fair play? At least I'm not gettin' her killed this way._

That last thought came as a surprise, but it also came with the reassurance that he wouldn't be coming back to flirt with any relationships that might get _him_ killed. Him getting friendly with a bounty hunter? Seriously?

Riddick suddenly shook his head and chuckled softly as he obeyed, ignoring the bright flashes of pain across his chest as he tossed his weapons in the bush. She watched and sympathetically indicated he wasn't done when he neglected his boot knife. Riddick weighed the value of one quick flick into any of the exposed throats arrayed about him, but there was no clear advantage to the action and would likely activate any number of trigger fingers, so he complied before slipping a wrist in a cuff.

The device locked automatically, adjusting to a fit that was snug but not uncomfortably so. Putting his arms behind his back pulled on his chest and he released a soft controlled hiss through his teeth as he slipped the other cuff on. It was just pain. That he could handle. Nothing was going to tear now. The cuff locked and immediately the flexible bar in between went rigid forcing his wrists apart. He recognized the style. She'd have a control somewhere that would give him a very nasty shock if he tried to pull anything and it'd track him if he ran. High tech cuffs for a damn slick hunter.

"Quite the charade," he commented.

"Not entirely fictional," she responded. "Enough truth to keep it real, but I didn't have many options. I wouldn't have survived five seconds if you had known I was a bounty hunter, would I?" she asked rhetorically.

"Not a chance," Riddick was honest with his answer and his respect. "Quick thinking, Coulter, and well played, 'though that perfume was a little over the top."

"Colts, actually." She smiled warmly. "Chasya Colts." Praise from Richard B Riddick was evidently to be appreciated regardless of the circumstances. "And...," she pulled a device from her bag and applied it one handed to the underside of her arm even as she kept the gun trained on Riddick. It hummed briefly, and she winced faintly as it withdrew a small capsule and then regenerated the little wound. "...even that served its purpose, wouldn't you say?"

Riddick glanced at the guards surrounding them. "Yeah, and nearly got us killed."

"Oh, and your bloody boot had nothing to do with that?" she returned wryly as she dropped the device back in the bag.

Slick, quick, and keen. She was a rare breed. "Maybe," he grinned. "So how'd you end up in Jenner's cryo?"

"The creed is greed," she answered distastefully as if it explained everything and Riddick got the distinct feeling that she did not care for that unspoken mercenary law. _'I definitely would have never expected you to save my life...' _ Her soft voice repeated in his memory. _'I guess we're even then.__'_ A bounty hunter with honor? What a concept.

She interrupted his thoughts as she continued. "You were feeling followed back in Clarista City on Breken 4, weren't you?"

"I thought someone was shadowing me," he confirmed. "Never got a look at 'em."

"Most of my targets never even realize I'm there." It was her turn to offer respect. "I was doing my research; trying to figure out the best way to take you... looking for weaknesses, seeing if there were ways to neutralize your strengths. Your sense of smell, for example..." She looked at him as if there were something significant to her little revelation, "...it's exceptionally keen. I might have fooled you with acting, but you would have scented a bluff from a kilometer away so..." She waved at the capsule site under her arm.

"Worked," Riddick said simply.

"But, there was no way I was going to try and take _you_ alone," she continued acknowledging his admission with a grateful nod. "Once I was ready to make the collar, I hired Jenner and crew for back up, but they got greedy. They decided I'd planned well enough they didn't need me anymore. They caught me off guard and drugged me hard... took my ship and made the collar themselves."

"_Your_ ship?" Riddick asked with a smirk, nodding meaningfully toward the forest. That screwed up business deal and unexpected expenses had a whole new meaning now. Truth and lie woven in the same conversation. _Enough truth to keep it real, you said. So, Colts, you really afraid of heights? I'm thinkin' that part might be true. _

"Yeah. It had bio-sensitive owner-on-board overrides built in. If they killed me, it wouldn't fly, so they made do. But now it's back to square one." She flashed him a sour look.

"Well, 850,000 creds should help ease the pain," he commented unsympathetically, and when he saw something like a wince flash in her eyes he cocked his head. "So how'd this've played if you never got a chance to even the score?"

She shook her head, an odd expression playing briefly across her features. "Guess we'll never know, but I'll tell you this much, if you get out again, I won't be the one coming after you." She reached up to brush a stray strand of hair away from her eyes, and Riddick found his attention drawn briefly to the dark half healed gash he'd flashed. If she didn't pay a pretty penny to have it fixed soon, it was going to scar. She wouldn't forget him anytime soon.

Suddenly, without warning, she crossed the distance between them. The movement was so smooth and casual that it didn't even register as a threat until he felt the barrel of her little gun pressed against his side, but in the next instant her free hand had snaked up behind his neck and was pulling his head toward hers. Fire spread across his chest, but curiosity as much as surprise prompted him to comply. As his face came down her lips rose toward his.

In that brief moment before contact the animal looking to keep its freedom was analyzing the situation... hands behind him was in issue, a painful one, but it could be dealt with. It was the warm body against his that was the question. As a hostage she might have value, but as a bounty hunter he had to expect she knew something of fighting. She'd feel it if he started anything while she was so close and if she pulled the trigger where it was now he'd be dead. The question was would she? She'd killed a man before and it bothered her - he knew in his gut that story was true. So would she be so quick to kill another one or would a gut check delay her reaction? Then again, would she even need to consider it. She knew his limitations... knew where he was vulnerable right now. His mind raced to process this new development, but it never even got as far as the guards.

Their lips met and Chasya's kiss sent a physical sensation rippling through his nerves, like a low electric current carrying pleasure in its voltage. It overrode the fire in his chest. It overrode everything.. He inhaled deeply through his nose in surprise, his eyes closing as this near, this intimate, he found more than a hint of her scent pushing through the fading flowers, a scent so rich and complex it called up imagery; a deep forest pool sprinkled in sunlight, nodding flowers, a sleek predator whispering of musk... and something else unique and different like a spice that wanted to be familiar. He smelled... he _felt_... her cold fear and hot blood in harmony with a bittersweet crescendo of pity and desire sending ripples of sensation through his body as she devoured his lips.

For the brief moment she held him he let her dominate his awareness... let the sensations drive _everything_ else away. For a brief moment his pain faded to background noise and the chase was gone, the drama was gone, the condemnation was gone... it was just her - the sensation of her lips, her passion, her emotions until she released the pressure on his neck and her lips parted from his.

The world returned. He lifted his head to look at her, fire returning with a vengeance, but Riddick ignored it. Chasya's thunder autumn eyes were slightly dilated and intensely rich, an echo of his surprise emoting from their depths.

There were so many times it had happen on their journey... that he swore he could nearly _feel_ her fear... but this was different. So near, so clear, so powerful, as complex as her scent. Was that what he'd been reading off her? Was it pheromones so subtle they traveled beneath the perfume... beneath conscious knowing?

"What was that?" Riddick asked a bit roughly, holding her gaze.

"A better way to remember you're alive," she said a little breathlessly, then without breaking his gaze her hand fell from his neck and followed the contour of his hip into the depths of his pocket as the little mousegun reminded him of its perilous position. He was keenly aware of her slim fingers questing against his thigh and when he felt her hand emerge a moment later, he knew it held a small tangle of silver and gem stones. "Don't get yourself killed, Riddick," she said quietly as she stepped back and away, and Riddick knew he would remember her as well.

Dropping the jewelry in her bag, she walked past him without looking back. Chasya handed the control for his manacles to the captain and Riddick was surprised to hear her say, "I'll be checking in on him," to the captain as she did. "This wasn't easy, and I'm going to take it personally if you lose him." There was a vague air of threat to the statement, and Riddick wondered what she thought she could do... what Tangiers thought she could do. Was she really tied to Tony Gallo? If that part was true too...

It would be a damn sight harder for Altair to disappear him if someone with a few shady connections was keeping tabs on him.

The captain handed her a credit stick. From her open bag she pulled out a little note/book, and as unassuming as it appeared, Riddick recognized the kind. This wasn't the bookstore model that begged protocols from local civilian communications and media feeds. This was the military version capable of hacking planetary communication grids automatically, including law enforcement channels. If she had one of those, she _did_ have connections _somewhere_, and that note/book explained the security squad. She'd probably contacted Tangiers while he'd been out after the cat attack, and they'd been tracking her signal ever since. _And, here I convinced myself she wouldn't have any resources this side of the city limits. She played me hard time._ A smile flitted across his lips.

_Yeah. Slick._

Chasya downloaded the credit stick into her note/book and checked the balance. She spoke to the captain briefly, saying something about a dermal regenerator as she entered an adjustment to the information displayed there and then pulled the stick and handed it back. But, it wasn't the captain she looked at as she did. It was Riddick. She nodded once, as if it were _he_ she was closing the transaction with, and then she turned away. As quickly as that he became official Tangiers Penal Colony property... for as long as they could hold him. He wasn't planning on sticking around long. One of the guards offered her a ride, but she waved the man off and started walking toward the town on foot.

The guards closed in around Riddick, and he heard the captain saying something about him having an appointment with the med-ward before they settled him in, but Riddick ignored them as he watched Chasya Colts walk away. The pleating of her short little skirt allowed it to flounce up one way and then the other with the confident swing of her hips as she strode cross country in a most unlady-like manner. Her boots were still in good shape, but the same couldn't be said for the rest of her fancy little outfit. Dirty, bloodstained, torn - there was very little about the woman striding away that resembled the frail he had pulled out of the cryo tube.

"Like I said," Riddick murmured to himself. "Sexy."

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**-OoO-  
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**THANKS to everyone who stuck with me on this. Hope you enjoyed the hike :o)**

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**WRITER'S THANKS, NOTES & NEWS:**

**NOTES (& a shameless plea!):**

One down... three to go! I can't begin to tell you how good it feels. Turn About has been my most popular story... well, up until two chapters ago - lol. I don't know if people just got tired of waiting, or my nixing the possibility of a fling turned them off, but I hope I find out now that the story is done (in my mind a backstory can't have anything that might risk 'softening' him - at this point everything in his life should only be making him harder - but I know Riddick will see her again. It's just at the rate I'm writing that story may not see daylight anytime soon :). **But final reviews would be SOOOO appreciated**. I've made you wait a long time, but other than that, what do you think? Did it wrap up satisfactorily? Were you disappointed? Did you figure it out (I know some of you were suspicious ;)? _Please_ let me know! My skills have grown over the course of this story, due in large part to Starnyx's persistent grammar patrol as my beta, and to your comments, critiques and reviews as readers. To every single one of you who took the time to put fingers to keys to encourage or correct, **THANK YOU**! I hope to carry them on to MyCoR 1: Saved by Grace - the first story in my arc and my next goal for completion. Now on to thanks at a more personal level :)...

**THANKS:**

**Tori-Da-Mutt - **Thanks for joining. I've been captured by a few stories that 'forced' me to keep reading into the wee hours - hehe. Kinda neat to think one of my stories may have done that to someone else. I don't know. Maybe you're generally nocturnal anyways, but it's a neat thought *GRIN*. So... any chance I can get that review you mentioned :)? Yes, I'm begging - lol. I would really love to know what you thought over all *GRIN*

**JadeObsession - **Glad! Thanks ;)

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**THE STORY THAT COMES AFTER THIS:**

**Five months and three prisons later...**

**MyCoR 4: Nigh Unto Christmas**  
**SUMMERY**: "I got him... I would'a never guessed he had such a soft spot in his little heart. Children in peril. He's stupid like that." John's Chase Log – TCoR: Pitch Black DVD bonus features. Hmmm, could there be a story there? Of course there is ;o)

**Current Status: **See profile for status


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